With Canyon Crest Academy’s Business Management class in the midst of constructing business plans for their latest ideas, a group of students was able to create a new app by the name CCA Today. It became available to the public in the Apple App store as of April 10th, and has seen promotion from both CCA-TV and Instagram. It stands as a beta test app, while the team still works to improve and expand the product.
The app aims to connect all aspects of the school with the widespread use of technology, as it offers various resources to follow the events and programs of Canyon Crest Academy. Downloading the app allows students, teachers, and parents to subscribe to subjects of interest, and receive notifications through their phone that highlight game days, show times, and other Raven events.
The Business Management class, taught by Jeannie Chufo, aims to prepare students for the world of business. The class is centered on innovative ideas coming to life and encouraging entrepreneurship; and has seen previous success with projects such as CCA’s student-run café, the Nest. At the beginning of the semester, students were asked to brainstorm ideas for a new business, and later assigned to bring the idea to life.
CCA Today took their idea to Pitch Deck, which is similar to the television show Shark Tank, except that it geared toward teenage entrepreneurs. This project has been assigned in previous years, however, Hannah Bush states, “past years didn’t usually go to Switch Deck, but we did, which is what really gave us a bigger opportunity”. The team won first place and $300 to fund their idea.
Seeking out technological assistance in creating the app, the students contacted app developers, but many were too expensive for their budget. Finally, the students discovered BuildFire, which was able to design their app. The $300 they won at Pitch Deck was able to reimburse the starting cost to code the app by Buildfire, and every month the team pays $50 to keep it in the App Store. The Nest currently funds the app, however, they are hopeful that ASB will later take over and expand it as a school sponsored app.
After launching CCA today in the app store, within a week the app gained 150 downloaders including teachers, parents, and students of the Canyon Crest community. Sixteen students work together every day for an hour and a half to work towards their goal of connected every aspect of CCA. The team has been working on the idea since March, and it has finally come to life. With great ambition came great success, and the students are more driven than ever to build CCA Today to an even bigger scale.