TAKING LEAPS OF FAITH The 2021 Empower Your Dreams competition shows the commitment BYUH students have to making a difference in the world BY XYRON LEVI CORPUS & ABBIE PUTNAM
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rom getting plastic out of the ocean, to opening a barber shop in the community, to selling affordable goat milk products in the Philippines to fight poverty, BYU–Hawaii students show they are committed to serving others around the world. Ali Barney, one of the second-place winners in the Math & Sciences category of the Empower Your Dreams competition, is part of the team Poly Plastic Fuel, a business started to clear the oceans of plastic. She said, “We envision taking our project to Kiribati, not so we can earn money and get rich, but so we can help solve [this] problem. We want to help make their lives better.” She said they eventually want to share their technology with the world. According to Spencer Taggart, an entrepreneurship professor in the Faculty of Business & Government, said starting a business is one of the biggest leaps of faith. “It requires faith to take action. The greatest action comes because of faith – faith to move forward, to take a step, to turn the key, to open the door, to make that payment, to design that product, to open that website, to enter a competition.” Taggart said the 2021 Empower Your Dreams competition differs in two ways from past competitions. First, he said this is the first year the competition was held completely online. Although he was worried not as many
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students would participate because of this, he said the 157 teams who competed this year made it the largest group of participants the competition has ever seen. There were four categories:Young Entrepreneurship, Arts & Humanities, Professional Studies and Math & Sciences. Jason Scott Earl, an entrepreneurship professor at BYUH, said the advantage of this was it put the students on equal footing and leveled the playing field. He said it is not uncommon for the best entrepreneurs to be students who are not business majors “because they usually have passion and knowledge for their course studies. So, we’re trying to take that and combine it with a business model that works. Bring your passion and discipline and turn it into something that could actually scale, feed your family and create jobs.” This is also a great opportunity for students to learn about business ideas from those in the same major as them, he added. Taggart said, “Regardless of what major, these competitions are for you. We hope people from different departments, teams and [with different] ideas get to win, which they will.” He said they want students to “be inspired and motivated to go start businesses.” He wants this inspiration to come to students because he said he believes running your own business is “a wonderful way of life” because “opportunities are endless.” It doesn’t
matter if a student is a mathematician or an English teacher, a personal trainer or an artist, he said if a student has a skillset and a passion, they can make a successful business out of it. On April 1, 2021, the final round of the Empower Your Dreams competition was held via Zoom. Taggart said the original 157 participants were whittled down to 12 finalists. On behalf of the Willes Center for International Entrepreneurship, he congratulated the 12 teams. “No matter what, every one of these finalists are going to walk away with a minimum of $1,000,” he said. He commended the participants for their impressive work. “I’m so proud, and I know Heavenly Father is too. He is grateful for your work and your courage and your faith.” Princess Stephanie Donato Astle, one of the four judges of the competition, said, “This competition is just a small portion of the bigger picture.” She said the real winners are the ones that continue to develop their business and urged all competition participants to continue following their passion and learning from their mentors. The first-place winner in each category was awarded $5,000, second place $3,000 and third place $1,000. During the Zoom event, Taggart said he hopes the students use the cash award to change their life by investing in their future.
