SIFE Projects
What We're Working On
- Cal Poly Biodiesel
- California Men's Colony Pre-Release Education Project
- E-Commerce
- Marketing Career Conference
- Ray Scherr Business Plan Competition
- Sweet Business
- Thailand Market Economics
- Writing Home Newsletter
Cal Poly Biodiesel
Two of the fastest growing concerns in America are how we are going to deal with our unquenchable thirst for foreign oil, and how we will reverse the effects of global warming. Biodiesel is at least a partial solution to both these problems. Biodiesel is an organic fuel made from vegetable oil. It can not only be wholly produced in America, but is also environmentally friendly.
SIFE Cal Poly is exploring this exciting fuel with a project that is working towards systematically implementing the use of biodiesel in our community. The team has worked with Cal Poly Engineering students to promote and implement a fully operational biodiesel processor on campus that will convert waste vegetable oil from on-campus restaurants into biodiesel for use in on-campus vehicles. The long term goal of this project is to educate the Cal Poly and San Luis Obispo communities about the benefits of biodiesel, to ultimately lead to increased knowledge and acceptance of the fuel in our surrounding communities.
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California Men's Colony Pre-Release Project
The overall goal of this project is to positively impact as many inmates as possible at the California Men's Colony. SIFE Cal Poly will educate and assist the inmates to get back on their feet financially upon release. Seminars will be held at the California Men's Colony, instructing attendees on such things as financial skills, job applications, interview tips, resume building, and business ethics. The project will continue into the future with additional seminars, creating an ongoing effort to help as many inmates as possible. The goal is to provide the prisoners with knowledge about resume and interviews so that they can ultimately land a job upon release. By providing budgeting tips for low income individuals, we hope to help them avoid pitfalls. In addition by providing the men listings of halfway homes in their county so all of them will have a place to stay. Provided that it is feasible, the project hopes to expand to multiple prisons and SIFE teams, creating a much larger impact.
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E-Commerce
The E-Commerce project gives students a thorough learning experience through the intricacies of online business, tackling web design, web search optimization, marketing, and much more. SIFE members will operate and monitor an e-commerce website selling a various selection of products, provided by a local San Luis Obispo entrepreneur. SIFE members will utilize Google Ad-Words to attract web-traffic to the SIFE ran website to make and deliver sales of the available products. Developing appropriate, working, key search-words will be the responsibility of the SIFE team; giving experience in web advertising and traffic direction. Decisions on supply chain management and distribution will have to be made by the SIFE team members. Profits made from the website will be utilized to help sustain Cal Poly SIFE expenditures (sending members to competition) and projects (marketing materials, etc).
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Marketing Career Conference
An opportunity for students and employers alike, Cal Poly's Marketing Career Conference is an annual event that improves each year. Featuring a recruitment fair as well as professional speakers and panels, marketing academics are able to network, gain insight, and "if they are exceptional" find an employment match.
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Ray Scherr Business Plan Competition
The goals of the Business Plan Competition are to involve Cal Poly students in the process of new venture creation, encourage commercialization of promising ideas from Cal Poly's colleges and research centers, and build bridges between Cal Poly, the entrepreneurial community and the community members of San Luis Obispo.
The Competition achieves these goals by supporting students and faculty in forming teams and exchanging ideas, providing a disciplined process of business plan development, and fostering opportunities to meet and interact with experienced entrepreneurs and investors.
The Competition simulates the process that entrepreneurs follow in seeking funds from investors to launch a company. Student teams progress through a sequence of steps including a Business Concept Outline, In-depth business outline, a written Business Plan, and an Oral Presentation before judges who serve as an investment committee. The winner of the competition will be based on the judge's final decision of the idea that has the best investment opportunity.
The process of business plan development provides an opportunity to conduct research and clarify assumptions; identify risks, problems, and issues; learn from external input and advice; test the climate of teamwork; define resource requirements; and attract external resources
Funded by Ray Scherr, the Business Plan Competition gives participants the opportunity to learn about and develop business plans in order to jump start their own business ideas.. Once everything comes together, the participants submit their business plans and compete for $10,000 in prize money.
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Sweet Business
This project is an education program for elementary school children about fair trade, ethics, sales, corporate culture, competition, supply chain and marketing. The project will teach these principles by using language that young children can understand. Sweet Business aims to increase entrepreneurship at an earlier age by helping the children communicate their needs, persuade others, develop leadership and have fun.
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Thailand Marketing Economics
For the Thailand Project, SIFE Cal Poly’s goal is to help create an economically stable environment for the Village of Mae Num Kuhn, Thailand. The team will do this by creating a market for Mae Num Kuhn’s tea and textiles here in the United States. In hopes to lessen the language and geographical barriers, we have allied with Engineers Without Borders. We also hope to have contact with the Thailand SIFE team nearest to the village. This will give us regular communication with the village.
By the end of the year the team plans to have a reliable trade established. The team will be selling purses made by a woman in Mae Num Kuhn, along with other fair trade products provided by the Fair Trade Club on Cal Poly’s campus. Bundling fair trade products will help spread the message of fair trade, while also creating a profit for those that work on those farms and make the textiles. We plan to establish ourselves on campus, in downtown boutiques and possibly online. Once reaching our goal of an established trade in San Luis Obispo, we plan to join EWB on a trip to Mae Num Kuhn and create a relationship with the villagers in hopes of helping them with their business skills and use of the money that they have earned through our sales of their purses.
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Writing Home Newsletter
The premise behind this pilot project is: to proactively unite students, the academy, and the community with those members of the community who are in need of financial assistance, relevant training, and morale enhancement.
The project is to create a monthly publication that is written, designed, edited, distributed, and sold by members of the homeless community.
Printing will be provided by the Graphic Communication Students at Cal Poly. Additionally, it is desired that computer hardware and software could be obtained and placed in Prado Day Center.
Qualified members of the community will be mentored and coached on developing writing skills for generating articles, special interest pieces, stories, reports, poetry, and possible themed columns. Basic office software applications will be taught in order to enhance writing training initiatives and basic business fundamentals in the form of budget preparation and sales forecasting. Additionally, basic and advanced computer graphics design will be taught on either Apple Macintoshes or PCs using current software applications. Members who do not wish to participate in the creation of the publication can choose to distribute and sell it in the community. They will be taught basic ethical sales skills and will be given marketing collateral to assist in their promotions. Although it has not been finalized at this juncture of the planning process, but it is assumed that advertisements could be sold and placed in the publication as a form of revenue to assist in paying the production staff. Likewise, sales distributors who sell the publication in the community would be remunerated either per piece or on a commission basis.
The bottom line is this projects addresses many issues that are in our very neighborhoods. It uses the talents of aspiring, highly motivated students enrolled in a World Class educational institution to learn first-handedly altruism and social responsibility by helping members in their very OWN community--not on foreign lands--learn ways in which to become production citizens of their community that can contribute back in the very same fashion.
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