Southern Entrepreneurship Program

04/12/2025

04/11/2025

🎉 Congratulations to our 2025 SEP Thrive winners! SEP Thrive is the culminating event of our statewide high school pitch series—designed to ignite bold thinking and strengthen Mississippi’s entrepreneurial pipeline.

These students didn’t just pitch ideas. They tackled real problems head-on with grit, creativity, and a determination to make an impact.

This year's top prize was awarded to CrowdSync, an innovative crowd tracking system that delivers real-time alerts and predictive insights for large events, enabling event organizers to prevent crowd crush and better ensure guest safety.

🥇 1st Place: CrowdSource
Celeste Tatum & Lauren Tatum
School: St. Andrew's Episcopal School

🥈 2nd Place: Forged in His Strength
Jonas Meador
School: Poplarville Career Development Center (Poplarville School District)

🥉 3rd Place: Enhance Your Dance
Haydenne Archie & Lance Bonner
School: St. Andrew's Episcopal School

Huge thanks to our sponsors—including Renasant / The First Bank and the Mississippi Council on Economic Education—for making this opportunity possible. These students aren’t just thinking big—they’re taking action. The future of Mississippi is in good hands.

05/02/2024

Such an impressive group of students! Congratulations to all of our finalists and winners in this year's statewide finale!!

11/17/2021

What a great day!! 300 students from across the state–Olive Branch to Ocean Springs–joined us virtually this morning for our 15th anniversary kick-off event! A huge thank you to our guest entrepreneurs who shared their startup stories and addressed a wide range of student questions:
* Dr. Sajani Barot - Founder & CEO, The Skin Consult
* Tripp Douglas - Founder & Creative Director, Crema Design Studio
* Stephen Kirkpatrick - Founder & Owner, Kirkpatrick Wildlife Photography
* Amanda Wells - Founder & President, The Tell Agency

And a huge congratulations to the student winners of our Innovation Challenge and Idea Competition!

Innovation Challenge (Top 5 StoryMaps)
* 1st Place - Candace Gross, Danica Beachy, Hunter Dawson, Kailey Middleton - Harrison County CTE
* Runner Up - Dylan Bleck, Nehemiah Thompson, JT Maverick - St. Andrew's Episcopal School
* Runner Up - Lauren Ladner, Jayla McQuillan, Jayla Ladner, Kaylie Carroll, Annie DeDual - Harrison County CTE
* Runner Up - Brionna Evans, Athan Oblepias, Graciela Aguillon, Aric Acuesta - Harrison County CTE
* Runner Up - Harrison Co 7 - Harrison County CTE

Idea Competition (Top 5 Video Pitches, alphabetically)
* Dylan Bleck - St. Andrew's Episcopal School
* Leyton Boykin - Florence High School
* Joshua Craft - Florence High School
* Brayden Kacarka - Florence High School
* Kaydence Newsome - Florence High School

04/07/2021

April is FULL of great student opportunities as well as their respective deadlines! The 6th annual Mississippi Entrepreneurship Forum, held virtually this year, runs April 13-14. Submissions to this year's SEP $10 Making Money Now challenge will close April 15. And our second (of three) monthly SEP Strive student challenges ends April 30.

Have you been missing these announcements? Join hundreds of Mississippi educators who have subscribed to our monthly newsletter "Opportunities Worth Sharing" at http://eepurl.com/dFHTu5!

02/20/2021

The SEP is closing out National Entrepreneurship Week 2021 with some very exciting event announcements. In place of our typical spring offering of SEP Strive, we have created a series of 3 monthly educational student challenges that will be released in our March, April, and May newsletters. Not signed up yet? Join hundreds of Mississippi educators who have subscribed at http://eepurl.com/dFHTu5!

Each optional challenge is designed to expand your students’ understanding of an important entrepreneurship concept like value creation, market validation, and financials. Educator resources will be provided along with each student challenge.

Here’s a sneak peek…
* March – VPC Challenge (creating value)
* April – MVP Challenge (validating a market)
* May - $$$ Challenge (testing viability)

The top submissions for each of these monthly challenges will receive cash prizes and will have the opportunity to advance to SEP Thrive, our invitation-only state competition (date and location TBD)!

11/18/2020

What a fun day with our friends Casey Combest, MS Secretary of State Michael Watson, Assistant Secretary of State Wade Hinton, and the hundreds of high school students and teachers from across the state who joined us virtually for Arrive 2020!

Congratulations to the winning student teams in the event's Innovation Challenge!
* 1st Place - Pop Up Grocery (St. Andrew's Episcopal School)
* 2nd Place - Specialty Vending (St. Andrew's Episcopal School)
* 3rd Place - RX Factor (Harrison County Career & Technical Education Center)

11/18/2020

Well done! St. Andrew’s always comes ready to play. Congrats to these teams for the creativity that went into their submissions, and a huge “thank you” to their teachers (incl. Mr. Roach and Mrs. Lieb) for their tireless determination to provide these experiences to their students.

Inspirational teachers and talented students coming together to solve problems within our communities is what the St. Andrew’s experience is all about, and congratulations are in order for these students who placed 1st and 2nd in the Southern Entrepreneurship Program’s "Arrive!" Innovation Challenge this morning!

09/21/2020

To the many Mississippi educators whose guidance is shaping "Season 14" of the SEP, we offer a huge "Thank You!" This year's programming may look and feel different than any year before, but your input preserves the tradition of excellence that you have helped us carefully develop over the past 13 years.

High School Teachers, we're currently preparing for a virtual SEP kickoff during Global Entrepreneurship Week in November. If we haven't heard from you yet, it's not too late!
https://usmuw.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eRQ6FzEhqDP8vqt

01/24/2020

Hundreds of educators across Mississippi have subscribed to the SEP "Opportunities Worth Sharing" newsletter.

Have you been missing out?

Subscribe today!
https://mailchi.mp/d5447b226215/subscribe

11/25/2019

Presenting at The Hammond Institute for Free Enterprise at Lindenwood University, hosting 500 high school students and educators from across Mississippi during the SEP's 13th annual series kickoff, and hosting the final round of university student pitches as part of the Southern Miss College of Business and Economic Development's inaugural Golden Idea Competition.