Once again, the Queen Creek Chamber of Commerce is hosting its annual Business and Education Summit next week and is still seeking industry professionals interested in participating to provide valuable insight into the workforce and how they can help local students.
The summit will be from 7:30 to 10 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 29 at the Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus' Cooley Ballroom, located at 5999 S. Backus Mall in southeast Mesa, near the Queen Creek border.
This Business and Education Summit brings together industry professionals, elected officials, educators and students to come up with ideas and possible solutions for workforce development throughout the community.
“We hear consistently that students are not ready to enter the workforce or prepared for post-secondary education. By bringing together industry, educators and students, we can work to solve problems locally so our kids are ready for life after high school,” said Chris Clark, president and CEO of the Queen Creek Chamber of Commerce. “We have roundtable discussions to generate ideas and solutions that become the guidebook for our programming for the upcoming year.”
He said last year, the summit focused on how the chamber can make it easier for businesses to help students and how do they get parents and students motivated to participate in career exploration and development.
One of the ideas from a previous summit led to the creation of Elevate for Tomorrow, a half-day conference for local high school juniors at the ASU Polytechnic campus, where students attend an opening panel to hear from local business owners about their failures and how they overcame them. Then, the students attend one of nine breakout sessions, ranging from college campus living to financial literacy to coping skills. Lastly, they head to what looks like a traditional college and career fair to explore post-secondary education and career options. Last year, 700 juniors went through the event.
According to the Queen Creek Chamber of Commerce, the next Elevate for Tomorrow will be in January 2025 and there are sponsorship opportunities and/or a chance to have a booth in the college and career expo area. Reach out to Kim Dowers at [email protected] for additional information.
In the meantime, Clark said it’s important to have industry professionals at the Aug. 29 Business and Education Summit to provide valuable insight into the workforce and how they can help students. If interested in being a part of next week's summit, register now at queencreekchamber.com/
