Southlake, Texas, Oct. 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Knowledge Matters, an eDynamic Learning company and the leading provider of career-based simulations for high schools, colleges, and corporations, announces the results of its All-Access Virtual Business Scholarship Challenge for high school students.  Each year Knowledge Matters offers simulation competitions for Career and Technical Student Organizations (CTSO) including DECA, FBLA, BPA, and FCCLA to allow students to test their skills within its particular Virtual Business environment. In addition, Knowledge Matters offers its own Virtual Business Scholarship Challenge to allow students to earn valuable scholarship money to further their education experience. This year’s focus was on the Entrepreneurship simulation where students learn market research, creating a business plan, the elevator pitch, raising money, going to market, operations, and much more.

“We know this year has been extremely challenging for schools, so we were not sure how many schools and students would be able to participate. We were pleased to see the highest turn out of any scholarship competition we’ve hosted in the three years we’ve offered simulation competitions!” said Peter Jordan, founder and CEO, Knowledge Matters. Over  3,500 students participated in 8,383 hours of work over an 11 day period.  Students represented 155 high schools in 41 states.

Winners included:

1st place $3,000 – Josue Aparcedo from Southwest Miami Senior High School, in Miami, FL

2nd place $2,000 – Jessica Piechota from John Jay High School, in Cross River, NY

3rd place – $500 Anthony Tudda from Newton High School, in Newton, NJ

We congratulate these remarkable students, their teachers and the schools that offered their students these opportunities. With the ongoing weight of the pandemic, it is great to see students excited about learning through the simulations and finding success.

“The students who participate in Knowledge Matters’ competitions and events each year never cease to amaze me. Their business, marketing, and finance skills, as well as their hard work and engagement is always remarkable. It feels great knowing that students are having fun with our simulations, and  receiving the benefit of learning about skills and concepts that they will be able to apply to real-life situations.” said Maureen Ginley, VP of Operations, Knowledge Matters.

Through the years, these competitive events have offered an extreme value to teachers as they provide an additional level of engagement for their students and reinforce important business, marketing and finance concepts. Students love the competitive aspect of seeing how their business is performing compared to their peers and teachers love the additional time spent learning. Many students who compete in these competitions find great value in including their competition scores on college applications and their resumes.

There are many more opportunities this year for students to take part in simulation competitions. The following CTSO offer their own challenges utilizing the Knowledge Matters simulations:

Registration for the DECA, FBLA, & FCCLA virtual events are open and will remain open during, and in between, qualifying rounds. Schools can register at Knowledge Matters and click on their CTSO icon at the bottom of the page. Participants compete for prize money and do not need to participate in each round to be the overall winner.

The DECA competition  takes place October 19, 2021 – October 29, 2021, and the second challenge round takes place January 18, 2022 – January 28, 2022.

The FCCLA & FBLA competitions  take place October 19, 2021, 10:00 a.m. EST through November 12, 2021, 5:00 p.m. EST. The second challenge takes place February 1, 2022, 10:00 a.m. EST  – February 25, 2022, 5:00 p.m. EST .

The BPA competition takes place February 1, 2022 through February 25, 2022.

About Knowledge Matters

Knowledge Matters is the leading simulation-based educational content solution for Business, Marketing, Finance, Hospitality, & Human Services. Knowledge Matters’ online visual simulations allow students to control their own virtual businesses – learning valuable business and marketing concepts using simulation game-based technology. The Virtual Business line of simulations are used in over one-third of all the US high schools and by leading universities globally.