Lawrence students work in the virtual world

Lawrence High School’s first-year virtual enterprise class took part in the second annual Virtual Enterprise Long Island Region Business Plan Competition at Molloy College’s Farmingdale campus on Jan. 10.

The students presented a business plan for the virtual company they created, A Twisted Cleaning Service, that provides cleaning services to other virtual firms in the tri-state area. Other members of the firm interacted with other Long Island virtual enterprise companies in an effort to generate sales.

For the past four months the students worked on their comprehensive and detailed business plan. “I am so grateful that this competition gave us the opportunity to show other firms and judges all of our hard work,” said company CEO Nicole Gartner.

Students gained an understanding what they could do to make their firm more productive in the virtual world. “As a first year firm, the business plan competition was an eye opener into how we can improve our own firm in the upcoming months and for next year,” said company COO Karen Dermer.

Lawrence’s virtual company was unique to the competition. “We presented a solid business plan. There are no other virtual cleaning services in this program. Somebody has to clean their office space because all virtual firms are required to pay virtual rent and utilities. We cornered the market,” said company CFO Gabi Golan.

Though Lawrence didn’t finish in the top three, the students did well enough to attract the attention of Dr. Francine Federman, acting associate dean of SUNY Farmingdale’s School of Business, who served as one of the competition’s judges, and wants to establish a relationship with Lawrence High School for the enterprise students to earn college credit for the course, according to Lawrence Career and Technical teacher Mark Palladino.