DECA Virtual Business Challenge – DECA Advisors
DECA competitive events are an integral part of the DECA experience for DECA students and advisors. DECA’s competitive events directly contribute to every student being college and career ready when they graduate from high school.
For over 15 years, the DECA Virtual Business Challenge (VBC) has been part of DECA competitive events.
Maybe you’ve seen the excitement of the VBC in-person competition at DECA ICDC. In Anaheim, CA this past April, DECA students from the U.S. and Canada hunched over their laptops furiously competing in the live VBC competition. The 96 teams that competed in Anaheim had survived two rounds of intense online competition and were the top 96 teams from the 41,357 high school students that competed in last school year’s VBC.
However, in our conversations with DECA advisors, we still discover there are some DECA advisors whose chapters don’t compete in the VBC. We wanted to answer some common questions that come up from DECA advisors about the VBC.
What is the VBC? – Virtual Business High School is a suite of eight different online business simulations for teaching high school business, marketing, and personal finance. Students control their own virtual businesses, and the businesses make money or lose money in response to the student’s decisions in managing the business.
For the VBC, we use seven of the eight classroom simulations (we’re adding Virtual Business Fashion to the VBC this year) for an online competition. Once your students register, they will have 11 days to run the simulation and compete with other DECA students across the country. Students can run the sim as many times as they want. We keep track of their highest score only.
The dates for this years VBC are: Registration begins October 10th, and the VBC first round is October 24 – November 3. The second round is January 9 – January 19th.
After two online rounds, the top teams across the nation, will compete live, head to head at DECA ICDC in Atlanta, Georgia.
Virtual Business software – you do not have to teach with the Virtual Business classroom product for your students to participate in the VBC. During the VBC, students will have access to a limited function, competition version of the Virtual Business online software regardless if you use the Virtual Business curriculum in the classroom. That said, we’ve had a long-running partnership with DECA, and we’re always happy to talk to DECA advisors/high school business teachers and can discuss a quote for Virtual Business for your classroom or school.
Teacher involvement – once you’ve approved your DECA chapter’s team registrations for the VBC (a process that takes just a few minutes at the beginning of the competition), the students have free range to compete in the VBC. The students can run the sim multiple times, including at home, and we always keep track of the highest score that they’ve submitted. Your involvement once you’ve taken a few minutes to register your chapter’s teams is minimal (check out the video below for VBC registration instructions). Of course, some students might want your feedback or ideas about improving their score.
Software/hardware – the DECA VBC is completely browser-based. Our software runs in the “cloud.” Students don’t have to download anything. They can even log-into the VBC from home. The VBC works on Macs, PCs, and Chromebooks.
Every year, the number of DECA students competing in the VBC increases. We’re hoping that this year your chapter will be participating too.