Saving the bees and making money

Mikaila Ulmer started her business — a lemonade stand in front of her house in Austin, Texas — for some children’s competitions when she was 5. But she added a couple of twists. She started with her great grandmother “splash lemonade” recipe from the 1940s, adding ingredients such as honey, ginger, mint and prickly pear to adapt it to modern taste buds. But she also added an element of social entrepreneurship by donating a percentage of profits to efforts to save honeybees (a goal she arrived at, ironically, after being stung twice by bees.)

From one store in Austin, the business (Me & the Bees Lemonade) has expanded to several other products and nationwide distribution in more than 1,800 stores.  Pardon the pun, but Mikaila, now 15, is creating a buzz.

Hear her talk about her exciting journey here:

Ten-year-old chef from China is a YouTube sensation

Known only as “Chef Zheng,” a 10-year-old boy in China has attracted about 1 million Youtube followers to his cooking tutorials. While his culinary skills (learned from his mother and grandmother) are top-notch, his video skills are what are putting him ahead of the pack. He uses nothing but a phone to film his cooking sessions, but the videos are fun — some include dancing along with cooking — and they are edited with creative techniques like extreme close-ups, slow motion and circular panning.

Want to be impressed? Take a look:

Two 13-year-old inventors win nationwide competition

Tait Hansen and Lily Brown began working on their toy idea in third grade. “We kind of were just bored one day,” Tait explained.  “It was something other to do than school and sports and friends,” Lilly added. It took Tait and Lilly, who are from Illinois and Utah respectively, two years to perfect their product, Betcha Can’t. But it was worth the effort. They entered the game  into the Chicago Toy & Game Week Young Inventor Challenge competition and they won the grand prize in 2018.

The game was picked up by Pressman Toys and, though it took more than year to bring to market, was launched in Target stores. Here’s a description of the game:

In this game of bets and brags, players bet on how many things they THINK they know. Think you can name the most ice cream flavors? How about theme parks? But be prepared to prove yourself if you get the “betcha can’t!” Answer correctly and win the card! But if you lose – you’re going to Time Out! Be the first player to collect five cards to be named the Better Bettor!

Want to learn more about their story? Watch the video: