Igniting Futures: Bentonville's Next-Gen Leaders at the NWA Tech Summit

Summary Join host James Bell in this special episode of The Bentonville Beacon podcast featuring interviews with students from Bentonville Schools’s Ignite Professional Studies Program. These conversations were live-recorded at the 2023 Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit, where the students were exposed to innovators, creators and leaders reshaping the world. At the start of the show, James also sits down with the program’s Director, Jessica Imel, to learn how Ignite helps juniors and seniors gain valuable work-based experience, industry-valued credentials and high-quality classroom instruction across nine different career fields. Ignite Professional Studies upholds its commitment to excellence by creating a real, relevant learning environment that helps students make informed decisions about their futures and prepares them for challenges and opportunities ahead. This nationally recognized program represents the collaboration of education, business and community to provide students with unique and immersive involvement that results in highly skilled, adaptable global innovators and leaders. Tune in now to discover how one of Bentonville’s unique educational programs is shaping tomorrow’s leaders today! Show Notes (1:46) Introducing Jessica Imel (3:39) About Ignite Professional Studies Program (6:23) Jessica’s #BecauseBentonville Story (8:06) What’s Next for Ignite (11:12) Advice for Learning New Skills (12:20) Introducing Kaushal Dhumal (12:43) Kaushal’s Project with the Greater Bentonville Area Chamber of Commerce (14:43) Kaushal’s Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit Experience (15:43) Kaushal’s #BecauseBentonville Story (17:21) Introducing Sarthak Chaturvedi (17:55) Sarthak’s Experience with Ignite Health Sciences (19:32) Sarthak’s Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit Experience (20:47) Sarthak’s #BecauseBentonville Story (23:11) Introducing Aditya Sohaney (26:54) Aditya’s Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit Experience (28:13) Aditya’s #BecauseBentonville Story (29:57) Introducing Praneel Vakkalagadda (32:37) Praneel’s Experience with Ignite Health Sciences (35:25) Pranee’s #BecauseBentonville Story (36:57) Closing Thoughts Links James Bell Bentonville Economic Development  Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit Jessica Imel Bentonville Schools Ignite Professional Studies Kaushal Dhumal Sarthak Chaturvedi Aditya Sohaney Praneel Vakkalagadda Quotes “One year ago, the chamber offered us some complimentary tickets to the NWA Tech Summit, and it was over fall break so we weren't hosting class, but we offered this opportunity to students. We had a couple of students who took us up on it, even though it was fall break, and listened to a session and wanted to meet the speaker afterwards. And what ended up happening is they ended up getting on a call. He invited them to join his research project. They did. They spent nearly all summer working on it…Fast forward to this year's Tech Summit, they were invited to do a thirty minute session to share their findings. We have stories like that in all of the career strands that we offer, but it's just one of those things that you're like, only in Bentonville would something like that happen.” - Jessica Imel, (6:47) “One story that I have is Walmart. The Store 100 was opening a section of the store that would be directed to only fulfilling online orders. And it would be different because it would be very automated. Store associates wouldn't have to go inside the store and take up aisle space, taking up a lot of time. It'd be much more efficient. And we got to meet the CEO personally. I got to talk to John Furner, the CEO of Walmart U.S., and that's something that can only happen in Bentonville. Meeting the CEO of a Fortune 1 company in a store, that would only happen in Bentonville.” - Kaushal Dhumal, (15:43) “We were in DC for a hosted trip, and we got to go to the Capitol building and speak to our state senator. Many of the states had trouble getting access and speaking to their state senator, but Senator Boozman was so friendly with us and we were able to talk to him. And apart from that, just meeting government officials so easily. Like over at our Ignite building, we've had people like Lukas Walton come in, the Senator, the State Secretary of Education, the Walton Family Foundation that have toured our building. And I've had the opportunity to give them those tours. So having people of that level come into our school and try to see what Ignite is and what these different things that us students are doing is just something I believe can only happen in Arkansas. It's a small circle, but we're all tight together.” - Sarthak Chaturvedi, (20:57) “I moved from India here last year, to Bentonville. And I think it's the people in Bentonville, the kindness of the people and how grateful they are. I don't think I've ever made friends so fast and people being so nice to me ever like that. And I think in the past year I've made the best friend circle ever, got these internships, the high school program for Ignite, and I think it's just all these things together that make Bentonville as a whole.” - Aditya Sohaney, (28:25) “We're such a small community, right? But there's so much, there's so many companies and we're able to get those experiences more than somewhere in Dallas where there's so much competition. It's limited to what you can do…but with how small [Bentonville] is, we're able to meet so many people and they remember us too because it's not like they meet thousands of people every day. They remember our faces. So these opportunities to connect with people are helpful.” - Praneel Vakkalagadda, (35:35)