The Young Entrepreneurs Academy, or YEA!, was launched in 2004 with support from the Kauffman Foundation. YEA! is a groundbreaking educational program that takes students in grades six through twelve through the process of starting and running a real business or social movement over the course of a full academic year. What sets YEA! apart from other entrepreneurial youth programs is that students launch and operate legally-registered and fully-formed enterprises or social movements during the course of the program year.

 

Created at the University of Rochester in 2004, the YEA! program was developed and launched in New York State at the University of Rochester with the support of a grant from the Kauffman Foundation, and it has since launched additional sites at the State University of New York at Geneseo (with support from the Finger Lakes WIRED initiative), at Niagara University, the Greece Central School District (NY) and Lake Zurich High School (IL). In September 2009, YEA! launched 11 new high school sites and a pilot site and model for a national expansion at the Boys & Girls Club of America in Rochester.

 

YEA! was initially developed as a pre-college, after-school, academic program hosted by colleges and universities. The original university model provides an opportunity for students to become familiar with the campus that their YEA! class is located on. Over the last four years, 42% of eligible YEA! students became matriculated undergraduates at the college where their YEA! class was held. YEA! has since designed and launched an additional, in-school model that allows high school students to take YEA! as an elective course, built into their school day schedule. The high school model allows YEA! to impact a greater number of students and eliminates potential barriers for students to participate, such as tuition costs, after school commitments and transportation to their local college or university campuses.

Our goal is to provide a unique and challenging experience for all students interested in participating and learning how to make a job – not just take a job – and eventually be able to give back to the communities in which they live. Given the current fiscal state of our nation, our program and its message have never been more important or more timely: entrepreneurship is what can and will help us make it through the current financial situation. By promoting and fostering the entrepreneurial spirit at an early age, YEA! lays the foundation for the emergence of new concepts, technologies and businesses, right in our own backyards. Young people begin the YEA! class as students and finish as CEOs in their own companies.

 

YEA!’s mission is to develop and deliver exciting, experience-based entrepreneurship programs to young people to enable them to transform their ideas into real enterprises that create economic and social value for a better world, develop the character or tomorrow’s leaders, and enable educational institutions to provide successful entrepreneurship and social innovation training programs for youth between the ages of 11 and 18 around the country. Over 100 businesses and social movements have been launched by YEA! students since 2004. More than 50% of the businesses started by YEA! students have continued after graduation. Thirteen percent of students have started a second business or social movement.

 

With a proven track record and more than six years of operating experience, YEA! serves as platform for youth for all walks of life, including under-represented minorities and low-income youth, with a drive for business or to make a positive difference in their world. It provides them with opportunities for empowerment, encouragement and helps build a sense of self-confidence they never knew they had. In 2008, 56% of YEA! students were under-represented minorities and 30% low-income. Forty-nine percent of YEA! students are female.

In November 2008, the YEA! program was spun-off into its own not-for-profit corporation which has signed a licensing agreement with the University of Rochester and has achieved 501(c)(3) status. Our team has the entrepreneurial spirit, passion and drive to deliver the program to students around the United States.

 

For more information about YEA!, please contact us at 585-272-3535 or click here.