A group of Britannia Secondary School business students walked away with the top prize from a competition put on by the UBC Sauder School of Business on March 15.

As a part of the UBC Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE): Spend It Right competition, the Britannia team was tasked with creating a revenue-generating product that could be used by a local non-profit organization.

The team consisted of students Sariah Conor, Rachel Bwishe, William Situ, Christine Hoang, Faustina Guan, Vicky Qiu, Annie Lei, Vanessa Xu and Austin Ma.

"I am very proud of these students," said Lee Nipp, department head of business education at Britannia.  "Winning a competition is not easy and occurs so rarely.  So to watch this type of success happen, it's hard to put into words sometimes."

The overall goal of the competition is to allow the students to receive first-hand experience with creating and producing an original product for an organization.  The contest also provides the students an opportunity to learn business skills not taught in high school.

For the competition, the Britannia team was assigned to come up with products that would benefit the Environmental Youth Alliance, a local non-profit organization.

"We were presented with a series of presentations by UBC Sauder Business students on budgeting, marketing and presenting and it was left up to us to come up with a sustainable product that would match with the Environmental Youth Alliance's mission," said Nipp.

The students had a variety of roles to fill to complete their project.

"The accounting team ensured that we followed our $20 budget, the marketing team conducted market research at Strathcona Elementary and the presentation team conveyed our findings to the judges this past Friday," explained Nipp.

Nipp believes that this contest is only the beginning of his students' success.

"I see a very bright future for these students," said Nipp.  "They've learned that one of the main keys to success in business is hard work - it's a quality that is evident in all of them.  Coupled with a quality education, these students will do well in their professional lives."