Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Lawrence High School’s Virtual Enterprise class, Tornado Watch, won big at the New York State Northeast Region Business Plan Competition and Trade Show, earning $137,000 in sales for their cyber security company and took home a silver award in the newsletter competition, demonstrating an ability to effectively communicate and engage with their audience.
VE is a college-level course, in its 14th year and simulates running a business. Students have to be recommended for the course and apply for the jobs such as accounting, CEO, CFO, CMO, COO, IT, human resources, marketing, social media marketing and sales.
“They fill out an application on Google Classroom, they meet with me and go through a brief interview and after a couple of days we announce the jobs to the class,” said VE teacher Mark Palladino. “Then, we start operations in October and the goal from a sales point of view is to generate sales from other firms from across Long Island and worldwide.”
Tornado Watch is one of 150 student firms in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
At Long Island University, Tornado Watch presented their business plan on Jan. 9 in front of judges for 10 minutes and held a five-minute question and answer period. By the end of this week, they will know if they are moving on to the semi-finals.
“The students each have their own personal online checking account, they get paid twice a month and the accounting department has payroll registered,” Palladino said. “They use their net pay to make purchases throughout the virtual economy, that’s the fun component.”
At the competition, the team demonstrated excellence in both business strategy and innovative marketing, with standout achievements in sales and competition categories.
For the trade show portion, the students pitched products and services to students and guest at their booth. As an incentive for a purchase, hats were given to each buyer. The students hand-made them in the class.
“That was influential in the $137,000 dollars in sales and the students use their phones for the point of sale,” Palladino added. “We are incredibly proud of Tornado Watch’s performance. Their hard work, dedication, and teamwork truly paid off and it was exciting to see their innovative cyber security solution receive such positive attention.”
Ava Abramov, CMO chose to take this class because her goal is to major in business and she spoke with her guidance counselor and the counselor believed this was the best option for her.
“The hats really attracted customers to our booths at the competition, for every purchase we made no matter the price we gave the hat as a reward,” Abramov said.
Eliel Morales, CEO was curious about the world of business and signed up for VE to learn business management and receive the college credits.
“Tornado Watch is a cyber security protection company and we sell personal protection plans for devices,” Morales said.
They mainly aim sell to school business administrators due to the high amount of cyber attacks.
“In the past four years, there were 29 attacks on Long Island, so we feel that it’s very important to charge students less than school business administrators,” Abramov added.
They are proud of their earnings at the competition and trade show, and now plan to reinvest into new technology, software and hire more employees.
“Even though we are a business, we act like a family and I’m so grateful that Palladino trusted me to be the top position,” Morales said. “I’m lucky to learn a lot about data information, the business world and help others with cyber security.”
