2026 NFTE Southeast DeKalb Startup Tech Showcase (In person)

Join us as a Volunteer Judge or Timer! 

Throughout the 2025-2026 academic year, students from several DeKalb County Middle Schools have been working with their NFTE teacher to develop app-based businesses. The students have learned about entrepreneurship and coding and it's now time to showcase their final projects to you - our community volunteers. 
 
NFTE students are asked to prepare a tri-fold board and a fast pitch showcasing their business idea to our local community members. During the expo, students are asked to share their problem and solution, as well as showcase their creativity through their app development sample. 
 
As an expert in your industry, students value the feedback they receive from industry experts in their local communities.

Your role as a volunteer judge: As an expert in your field, you will evaluate each expo booth based on the given rubric. Utilizing the entrepreneurial mindset as a guide, you will be asked to provide feedback to students based on their business idea and how they can make improvements to their problem, solution, target customer and more. Based on scores, the top student businesses will move on to our final round of the competition taking place at the end of this event. 

Our volunteer timers play an important role during the evaluation period. Timers are assigned to a group of judges and will ensure student presenters and judges stay within the allotted presentation time frame at each expo booth. Once their judging group has visited all assigned businesses, the timer will escort the judges to their deliberation room and will provide time to the judges to decide on a winner. Timers will make sure the judges do not deliberate past their allotted time and will then provide the name of the winning business to the event host for announcement. 


Startup Tech Showcase - DeKalb County School District (In Person)

Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Time: 4:00 to 7:00 PM EST
Location:
Tucker Middle School,
2160 Idlewood Road
Tucker, GA 30084

Preparation:

1. Attend the orientation training.
2. Review the judge's rubric and volunteer materials before the start of the event.
3. Bring your entrepreneurial mindset on event day
4. Be willing to encourage, listen, provide constructive feedback, and support students based on their idea, solution and presentation skills.