The 8^th Annual Global Economic Symposium (GES) was held virtually on Friday, March 25^th. Thanks to the technical support from Brightcove, a Boston-based video platform company and the extended network of Blacks on Wall Street, this year’s program included schools from Chicago, the District of Columbia, and New Orleans to compete with the legacy teams from Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and Texas.

Student teams from high school and middle school with the assistance of mentors from Bridgewater State University, Northeastern University and Bentley University identified a global issue, researched nations that were most impacted by the issue and nations that had success in addressing the issue and as a result, provided a recommendation on a policy, practice or action that they felt could help mitigate the impact of this global issue.

In the weeks leading up to the Global Economic Symposium, student teams produced short videos to highlight their analysis of the problem and their proposed solutions. On the day of the event, their 5-minute pre-recorded videos were shown to panels of judges consisting of distinguished experts in academia, industry, banking, and education. The students on each team then had opportunities to respond in real time to the judges’ questions.

At the conclusion of the event, the following schools and teams were selected by the judges for award recognition, based upon the quality of their research presentations and their responses to judges’ questions:

International Division (High School)

1^st Place Energy Dependence                                   East Greenwich High School, RI

2^nd Place What About Our Health?                           Brockton High School. MA

3^rd Place The Economic Strain of Prisons                McDonogh 35 Senior High School, LA

4^th Place Spreading awareness and finding

Solutions for clean water and sanitation               Townview School of Business, TX

 

 

Global Division

1^st Place Supply Chain                                                    Ashfield Middle School, MA

2^nd Place Climate Change                                              Ashfield Middle School, MA

 

Included in the programming of the day were two inspirational speakers.

In the morning we heard from keynote speaker, Loida Lewis, the wife of the legendary Reginald Lewis, who was the first black businessman to pull off a billion-dollar leveraged buyout and wrote the book: Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun? Ms. Lewis, a force to be reckoned with in her own right, chair, and chief operating officer for TLC Beatrice, LLC, concluded her speech with the following advice: “focus your lives on Goal setting, Obedience, and Determination”.

The day ended with another inspirational speech from Dr. Fred McKinney, recently retired Carlton Highsmith Chair for Innovation and entrepreneurship at the Lender School of Business at Quinnipiac University and former president and chief executive officer at the Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council that advised students to: Think Big; Have a Dream’ Talk and Listen to People, particularly those outside your normal circle; Help Others; Stress Yourself, Not Others; Exercise. Eat Right and Love Yourself.

Here is the list of participating Schools:

Archbishop Carroll High School, Washington, DC

Ashfield Middle School. Brockton, MA

BASE Chicago, Chicago, Ill

Benjamin Franklin High School, Cambria, Heights, NY

Brockton High School, Brockton, MA

East Greenwich High School, East Greenwich, RI

John Philip Sousa <idle School, Washington, DC

McDonogh 35 Senior High School, New Orleans, LA

Townview School of Business and Management, Dallas, TX

 

The supervising educators who helped make this all happen:

Sam Anderson

Sherrell Tolbert Batts

Tiffany Banks Brown

Peter Czymbor

Matthew Genua

Donald Hess

Jamison Martin

Kevin Miles

Michelle Ming

Dr. Patricia Page

Cedric Turner

 

Judges

Nelia Arruda

Camille Baerga

Doug Banks

Richard Ciarletta

Robert DeLuca

Martin Dias

Meredith Duhaime

Alexis Fennoy

‘Scott Glasgow

David Gulley

Moon Han

Brian Hannon

Blaire Horner

Charles Hudson

Prakash Koirala

Christopher McHugh

Ethan Powell

Kevin Ruth

Joanne Schneider

James Steele

Scott Stephenson

Laura Young

Volunteers

Austin Barber

Sara Barber

Elizabeth Beckett

Parker Byron

Finesse Carter

Alix Holder

Jackie Anne Joseph

Barbatt Jocelyn

Lisa Rodriques

Petroy Thompson

Michael Turner

 

The generous support of the following sponsors made the Global Economic Symposium available free of charge to all participating students and schools

Platinum Sponsors:

Blacks on Wall Street

Brightcove

EmpowerYourself

 

Gold Sponsors

Eastern Bank

Give-Get

 

Bronze Sponsors

Bank 5

Bridgewater State University

Council for Economic Education

 

The Global Economic Symposium creators are Mr. Cedric Turner, Mr. George “Scott” Scott Guild, Dr. Margaret Brooks, Dr. Patricia Page, Mr. Bob Barber and the co-collaborators: from Blacks on Wall Street: Mr. Dennis Creary, Ms. Stephanie Barimah