TYE Adds an ‘E’ to the Three R’s

TYE winners this year (top): Arnavi Chheda, Diane Liu, Joy Hsu; (bottom): Nancy Xiao, mentor Bob Crimmins, Shreya Rajsekar.

Math and English are cornerstones of a high school education, but TYE Seattle and DECA Washington are introducing high school students to business studies with the hope of teaching them to think creatively about their futures.

TYE Seattle is only two years old, and while DECA Washington has been around longer and boasts more than 10,000 members, the two organizations have similar goals: To give high school students a chance to dip their feet into the business world and to prepare them to tackle real-world problems.

TYE stands for TiE Young Entrepreneurs; its organized by the nonprofit TiE Seattle, which has traditionally been a business group for immigrants from southern Asia, but has been expanding its reach. TYE takes place in an after-school setting, and students learn from local entrepreneurs and get to work hands-on with the nonprofit Vittana.

Janani Krishnaswamy, the chair of TYE Seattle and a program manager at Microsoft, believes that education is lagging behind innovation, leaving young people unprepared to enter the business world. The pace of innovation has substantially increased in the past few years and we feel that it is incredibly important to expose the future generations to the fundamentals behind innovation as soon as possible, she says.

DECA has traditionally been a business program offered through secondary schools, but a partnership with Giant Campus has put DECA online and given students across the state access to the organizations vast network of teachers and business professionals.

According to Pete Findley, the CEO of Giant Campus, kids in the program are responding to changes in the busi ness world. The students enrolling in DECA are more aware of their futures. Theyre concerned about job possibilities and earning potential, and were seeing students who want to learn global skills, business and marketing.

Providing young students with the opportunity to learn in a business can instill a desire to succeed and to use skills that they will need for the rest of their lives. Students learn to be creative, to question boundaries and to work effectively in diverse groups, Krishnaswamy says. What students are taught is not just what business is, but an introduction to the real world.