The enthusiasm was evident right from the start.
Nearly 300 middle and high school students in grades 8-12 packed into the auditorium at the University of Delaware’s Clayton Hall on the morning of October 15 and were greeted by Siegfried Youth Leadership Program (SYLP) staffers Megan Davis and Dylan Gerstley.
As Davis and Gerstley called out participating schools, students competed to see who could make the loudest cheers. The pupils from the 16 local schools were ready to begin an interactive day of individual leadership development, entrepreneurship and thoughtful reflection during the event, the 16th on UD’s campus since SYLP was founded in 2016.
The Siegfried Group, an entrepreneurial leadership advisory organization founded by Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics alumnus Rob Siegfried, sponsors the semi-annual event in partnership with Lerner’s Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship and Horn Entrepreneurship. SYLP’s higher purpose is to help young people transform themselves into better individual leaders to enrich their lives and inspire positive change in their communities.
“This is a powerful event that brings youth from Delaware to invest in themselves, and make sure that, as they do so, they can also create positive change around them,” Carlos Asarta, the James B. O’Neill Director of CEEE, said. “We thank Rob and Kathy Siegfried for their support and significant impact on secondary school leadership, entrepreneurship, and economic education in the state.”
Davis, Siegfried’s director of brand and communications, and Gerstley, a content creator for the company, welcomed the entire group of students and teachers with a session entitled “Creating Your Bigger Future” which got the group thinking about personal leadership. Davis noted that a person must become a better leader of themselves before they can lead teams, companies or businesses. “That means taking responsibility for who you are, what you bring to the table, and how you show up every day,” she said.
Once you can inspire and motivate yourself, it’s a little bit easier to get other people to follow along on the journey, Davis continued. “When you’re becoming a better individual leader, that hard work is moving you out of your comfort zone, which is where a lot of us tend to stay because it’s comfortable. But when you move outside that comfort zone, that’s where you start to grow and change.”
For the first time in the program’s history, dynamic concurrent sessions were offered, permitting students to break out into four groups, attending topics that interested them and that they had chosen before arriving. The session topics included:
“Fuel Your Future: The Power of Curiosity and Dreams” which was led by Siegfried’s Nick Enos and which challenged students to think critically and cultivate intellectual curiosity;
“Incentives, The Profit Motive, and You” which was led by Professor Asarta and helped students understand the importance of uncertainty, risk and incentives in entrepreneurship;
“Confidence 101: Presenting Your Best Self” which was led by UD Adjunct Professor Nat Measley and focused on building confidence and resilience; and
“Unlock Your Creative Power: The Entrepreneur Within” which was led by Horn’s Maggie Nelson and which guided students through a dynamic session on creativity and innovation.
The students and teachers then reassembled in the auditorium for the day’s keynote speaker Markevis Gideon, a Delaware native, local entrepreneur and founder and owner of NERDiT NOW.
Gideon spoke about the process of starting and growing his business and hit on several key pieces of advice including identifying core values, focusing on possibilities over probabilities, not letting others impose their limitations on you, not fearing competition but seeking cooperation, and embracing mentorship and paying it forward.
The day concluded with Gideon joining four students onstage for a panel discussion in which they shared their biggest insights from the event, talked about the people in their lives who could support them achieving their dreams, and elaborated on their next steps when they returned to school.
“My main takeaway would be the importance of change in leadership and life in general. I feel like you need to be embracing change at all times and learning from every single mistake you make in order to become a better person,” said Gunnar Russo, a student at Devon Prep.
“I learned from Dr. Carlos (Asarta), he said that without risk, there is no reward,” Howard High School student Christian Cobb noted. “I feel like that’s very important, because there’s so many entrepreneurs out there, they didn’t get anywhere without taking risks.”
“My biggest insight was that you need others to help you achieve your dreams and goals, and that you can’t let fear and what others think limit you and what you can do,” added La’Niyah Robinson-King, who attends Dover High School.
Emerson Wright, a student at Woodbridge High School, echoed those thoughts near the conclusion of the roundtable. “I need to not let other people and their opinions shape my dreams. I think I need to stop worrying about what they think, commit to what I want to do, and just go for it.”
The day’s events were meaningful not just for the students, but their teachers as well.
“I believe this event is very impactful,” said Karen Knight, a teacher at The Bayard School in Wilmington. “Just being here and listening to these children talk about their goals at such a young age, and then watching them get up on stage to say these are the steps I want to take to get there, is very inspiring. This platform made them feel confident enough to get up and speak. So I think this program is really wonderful.
“In the first session I was thinking, ‘Oh, I wish we would have brought more students here, so that they could see the impact of this wonderful event.’ We’ll definitely be doing that next time.”