The upper school Business and Economics department hosted its annual BEcon 2016 conference on Saturday in Nichols Hall from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The convention featured a wide array of engaging activities, ranging from keynote speakers, educational workshops, poster sessions and a networking lunch to the opportunity to pitch a hypothesized business plan to bay-area venture capitalists.

BEcon was the product of over a year of meticulous planning, led by Ria Gandhi (11) and Ankur Karwal (12). As a student initiative, the organizing team has worked hard contacting the keynote speakers, coordinating promotion and building corporate sponsorships from companies such as Songabby and IBM.

Ria, who is also Vice President of Marketing, talked about the planning that went into the project.

“We decided to not do [a conference] in 2015 because we wanted to make sure we had enough time to plan a bigger, better conference,” she said. “The conference has really come together over the past month, and I know it was a huge success.”

The conference kicked off with a poster session, where students set up booths and promotional materials to showcase their current projects in business class. Poster’s were broken up into three categories: business, entrepreneurship and economics. In addition to posters, there were two economic activities in the atrium, where students could learn and analyze trends.

Broken up throughout the day were three workshops: Startup 101, Personal Finance and Rock Your Profile.

The first taught students how to navigate the business-startup world, and the modern-day climate for launching companies. Taught by Wharton professor Keith Weigelt, the finance workshop involved managing personal money and accounts. The last activity was sponsored by LinkedIn, where students learned to bolster their résumés and to build a network of professional connections.

This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on March 23, 2016.