Hewlett High teams are Virtual Enterprises finalists

DigiScribe and Pockits, two teams of Hewlett High School students, are among the dozen Long Island high schools that are a part of the 40 finalists out of 310 teams in the Virtual Enterprises National Business Plan Competition. The final will take place online April 12 to 22.

DigiScribe is Peyton Adler, Jessica Benaharon, Kaitlyn Beyda and Ian Isseks. Pockits is Joshua Tepper, Joshua Zelikoff, Fallon Zemlyansky and Rebecca Ziarno.

Student finalists advanced through local, state and regional competitions, showing their business plans and making oral presentations on their virtual businesses.

The National Business Plan Competition is one part of the year-long Virtual Enterprises program that provides more than 16,500 students with the opportunity to create and run virtual business ventures in 430 schools across the country.

Students create a business together, role-play corporate positions, conduct transactions with other simulated businesses, attend trade shows and run the business akin to a real one.

Since its 1996 inception, the Virtual Enterprises program has had more than 160,000 students take part. In 2015, the VE-JV Career Academy, a similar two-year program which enables seventh- and eighth-graders to develop technology and entrepreneurial skills by starting and managing business ventures.