West Orange VE Students Create Biz Solution for College Tours

Since September, juniors and seniors at West Orange High School have lamented that they couldn’t visit colleges due to the virus. The “boxed” tours available online, they said, didn’t satisfy their need to see certain buildings and get a realistic assessment of student life. But then the school’s Virtual Enterprises (VE) students, who are charged each year with creating and running a virtual business together as a class, had an idea.

Instead of simply accepting the universities’ boxed tours, they would hire students who are already on these campuses to conduct customized tours for anyone interested. “If I wanted to see Rutgers but I’m only interested in specific areas of the campus and student activities, the company would hire Rutgers students to conduct those tours,” said VE teacher Maria Frangos. The students have named their campus tour business WiredTours.

Though WiredTours is virtual, the VE students will present their business idea in Intuit’s“ Design for Delight” program, which takes place online on Nov. 19th. “Design for Delight” teaches students how to focus on understanding societal problems by developing customer empathy and then identifying ideas that can be prototyped and tested through experimentation.

The VE program at West Orange High School has produced several award-winning virtual businesses for the past several years and has won for best business plan in the state in 2019 and best sales pitch in the state earlier this year.

West Orange's VE students said they are excited to announce that Deloitte mentors will guide the students in the development of their business this year and that veteran mentors from the West Orange business community and the West Orange Chamber of Commerce will continue to provide guidance as well.