University-based Programs
Atiku Center for Leadership Entrepreneurship & Development
American University of Nigeria, Nigeria
The Atiku Center provides a wide range of humanitarian, livelihood, agriculture (sustainable agriculture), sustainability, and business development projects to give sustainable livelihood to more vulnerable IDPs, returnees, and host communities in insurgency-affected local government areas of Adamawa, Yobe, Borno and Gombe states. Sample programs include the North-East Small Business Seminar and Financial Support Intervention, the SME Power Up Project in the Northeast of Nigeria, the North-East Business Concept Competition, SDGs Start-Up Bootcamp, SME Project Abuja, and Financial Literacy for Financial Independence.
Baton Rouge Community Entrepreneurship and Adversity Initiative
Louisiana State University, USA
The Baton Rouge Community Entrepreneurship and Adversity Initiative seeks to help members of the Baton Rouge community, particularly those facing economic or other hardships, start and grow a business. It is a joint effort of the LSU Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute and the City of Baton Rouge. The initiative has two key components: a training program called the Tiger Bootcamp for Entrepreneurs and consulting projects for disadvantaged local entrepreneurs.
Center for Urban Entrepreneurship
Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship (CUE) is helping reshape the regional economy and build wealth within the urban community by being the central resource for urban entrepreneurial programs and research. Its Capacity Building Program is an intensive 6-month customized training program that is designed for entrepreneurs who have been in business for at least one year and have earned revenue. Both for-profit and non-profit entities may participate in the program. The program's purpose is to assist entrepreneurs with the development of a customized Capacity Building Development Plan (CDBP) that will ultimately lead to an increase in annual growth rate and provide positive stimulation to the urban entrepreneurial ecosystem. The program is entrepreneur-centric, meaning that while the program takes participants through a series of relevant training modules, delivery is conducted to speak to the issues and realities of the specific businesses in each cohort. Each business undergoes an initial assessment of its current business structure, operations, and history, along with a step-by-step plan of how to move forward, with objectives and benchmarks against which to measure progress throughout the program and after its conclusion.
Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development
Rutgers University, USA
The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development (CUEED) is the first Center of its kind in the nation to integrate scholarly works with private capital, government, and non-profit sectors to develop citywide resources and bring renewed economic growth and vitality through urban entrepreneurship. We promote and foster a new generation of urban entrepreneurs seeking a socially conscious urban renaissance. Our mission is to build a world-class research-driven, teaching, and practitioner-oriented urban entrepreneurship and economic development program that will transform the economy of the City of Newark, New Jersey, and other urban centers; create wealth in urban communities; and be a model for all urban universities. Our vision is to be the world's leading Center for innovative thinking and research on entrepreneurial activity in urban environments. As such, we work across constituencies to create new knowledge and tools that build thriving urban communities. CUEED provides various types of assistance to entrepreneurs in different industries. Sample programs include a) the Entrepreneurship Pioneer Initiative, which is designed exclusively for first-generation entrepreneurs and is a highly competitive nine-month program that can serve as a single source to support the growth of a business. The program offers a powerful blend of monthly classes, intensive training, one-on-one counseling, financial guidance, peer coaching, and networking, and b) the Urban Retail Acceleration Program, an exclusive program designed specifically for Black and Latino entrepreneurs who currently operate a retail or restaurant business in New Jersey and are interested in opening a new retail store or restaurant.
CNM Ingenuity USA
Central New Mexico Community College, USA
Poverty and economic development are major issues in New Mexico. CNM Ingenuity is a non-profit corporation created by Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) under the New Mexico Research Park Act. It supports a new approach to education that provides accelerated educational and training opportunities in crucial workforce areas, wrap-around support for aspiring entrepreneurs, and cooperative ventures that foster economic development and job creation in the region. Established in 2014, CNM provides aspiring entrepreneurs the support they need to take their fledgling businesses to the next level. The mission of CNM Ingenuity Inc. is to promote the public welfare and prosperity of the people of New Mexico and foster economic development within the private and public sectors of the New Mexico community. CNM Ingenuity Inc. accomplishes this purpose by forging links between New Mexico's educational institutions, businesses, industries, and government. Sample programs include Deep Dive Coding, IGNITE Community Accelerator, Culinary Experience, SPACE Solutions, and ActivateNM.
Community Anti-Poverty Program
Ashesi University, Ghana
MASO and the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC) are innovative initiatives of Ashesi in partnership with other development organizations, including Solidaridad and the World Bank Group, respectively. MASO uses a holistic approach that combines market-relevant skills training, mentorship, internships, and access to financial services to support sustainable start-up businesses in cocoa-growing areas. GCIC focuses on developing SME ventures and entrepreneurs in Ghana's 'Green Economy' through premium business advisory and business mentoring services, technical support in the development, prototyping, and testing of innovations, as well as financial Proof of Concept grants in excess of $1m. The University has several programs in place to provide financial assistance to start-ups in the community. The Ashesi Venture Incubator, the MASO project, GCIC, and the MasterCard Foundation Incubator have provided grants in excess of $2.25 million to support sustainable start-up businesses. Ashesi has provided grants in excess of $165,000.00 to local businesses in agriculture, information technology, etc., through its partnership with the MasterCard Foundation.
Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India - Ahmedabad - UPBI Partner
Bengaluru, Madurai, Hyderaba, India
The Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India Ahmedabad is a National Resource Institute in Entrepreneurship Education, Research, Training, and Institution Building by developing skills courses, training, and capacity-building offerings. In addition, this institution has developed programs, projects, and models such as the Entrepreneurship Development Programme Model, Post Graduate and Doctoral Programmes in entrepreneurship worldwide, collaborations with State and National Government Departments and Ministries, corporations, and much more. These and more projects meet the needs and train an estimated 80,000 to 1,000,000 potential entrepreneurs.
Gainesville Entrepreneurship and Adversity Program
University of Florida, USA
The Gainesville Entrepreneurship and Adversity Program (GEAP) is an integrated, multifaceted program to empower those living in adverse circumstances to create and grow their own businesses. They work with community members over a 12-month period. GEAP includes six components: six weeks of training, followed by one-on-one consulting, mentoring from successful business owners, connections to community resources, a microcredit program, and progress tracking.
Global Poverty Research Lab
Northwestern University, USA
The Global Poverty Research Lab addresses psychological and social obstacles to seizing economic opportunities. The Research Lab is focused on fighting poverty more thoughtfully and effectively. Therefore, they designed and conducted a randomized controlled study comparing multiple social programs' effectiveness for thousands of households in Niger. The professionals wanted to understand the relationship between psychosocial constraints and any barriers to seizing and accessing economic opportunities. Ultimately, the lab concluded that government-run programs should work on "multiple fronts," including mentorship, training, and access to funding. They also offer multifaceted programs that yield vital improvements for those living in impoverished communities as it combats poverty and improves cost-effectiveness.
Goizuela School of Business (Starting and Growing Atlanta's Small Businesses)
Start:Me Emory University, USA
Start: ME is a free small business training program that gives entrepreneurs, particularly people of color and women, the tools and connections necessary to build and grow successful businesses.
Helping Small Scale Entrepreneurs in Ecuador
Universidad del Azuay, Ecuador
The Universidad del Azuay has a project to foster small-scale entrepreneurship in the city of Cuenca. It was launched in 2020. This is a project to work together with the City Hall of Cuenca to identify barriers in small scale entrepreneurship, then develop different courses to help them with skills and solutions to improve their business. In the methodology, they started with exploratory research involving focus groups with twelve entrepreneurs from different areas and types of ventures. This was followed up with a survey of 450 small scale entrepreneurs to recognize their needs and barriers that are facing. Six courses of 15 hours each were developed based on this data. These courses are presented by experts from the University and involve no cost for any of the entrepreneurship involved in this program. After these courses, graduate students in entrepreneurship work together with these small-scale entrepreneurs giving them support and tracking the strategies applied in their businesses after they receive the courses. The goals are to help entrepreneurs improve their businesses and become both sustainable and profitable. They seek to connect them with suppliers to receive solutions, increase their productivity and develop a marketing plan to be positioned in the market as great local products to use and receive benefits from the community. The budget for a university to do this program is $17000.00, and the timeline is one year. The program is part of a more significant initiative called "Linking with Society."
In Quest for a Better Future – Refugee Entrepreneurship in the UK
Leeds University Business School, England
In recent years, the refugee crises in Europe have raised concerns about addressing the social and economic needs of the growing numbers of refugees arriving in the UK from countries such as Syria. Since the onset of the Syrian crisis in March 2011, Syrian refugees have been displaced at numbers estimated to be as high as 6.6 million inside Syria and more than 5.6 million outside Syria (UNHCR, 2018). Over the last two years, this research project has focused on the knowledge and skills that Syrian refugees bring to the UK to explore how these skills can be harnessed to enhance refugees' economic contribution and social integration in the UK. To date, there have been five (5) local authority focus areas in the North of England: Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield, and support for the project comes from Syrian refugees, Syrian refugee entrepreneurs, the Refugee Council, refugee aid agencies and established scholars in the field. Refugee asylum applicants enter the UK independently via air, sea, or land or through the UK Government's Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement programme (VPR), which aims to settle 20,000 in total by 2020 (Home Office, 2015). However, the numbers arriving in the UK have started to decline over the past three years, thus, making this an appropriate time to move away from the focus on the costs associated with increasing numbers of arrivals towards a focus on engagement and settlement. Although refugees are still moving and being displaced around Europe, a less chaotic and uncoordinated period of migration is upon us, and the challenge now is about engaging and settling those refugees already in the UK (Crawley et al. 2018). This project explores the costs incurred by supporting refugees and the skills and knowledge refugees have when they arrive in the UK. It will continue exploring opportunities to engage Syrian refugees, find ways to support them and enhance their active participation in and contribution to the UK economy. The project also applies a qualitative methodology to understand the challenges, motivators, perceptions, and feelings of refugees and how their narrative develops throughout journeys in which they are in continuous relational processes with their contexts.
McMaster Community Poverty Initiative (MCPI)
McMaster University, Canada
Created at McMaster University, the McMaster Community Poverty Initiative (MCPI) was formed in 2007 to address local conditions of poverty. The McMaster Community Poverty Initiative is the title for a group of students, faculty, and staff dedicated to research, advocacy, education, and action related to poverty reduction. Together with their partners in the Hamilton community, they strive to use knowledge for social change. It will bring together people from the University (faculty, staff, and students) and from organizations in the community who work in pursuit of a more equitable and just society. It will strive to involve people who live in poverty in all facets of its work. Its work and direction will be guided by the expertise of communities and individuals knowledgeable about what it means to be poor and to live in Hamilton. The members work to enhance understanding of the meaning and consequences of poverty and its intersection with differences related to race, gender, class, immigration status, and ability - in order to inform and advocate for the systemic changes needed to eliminate it.
Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship
Santa Clara University, USA
The Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship is focused on "accelerating entrepreneurship to end global poverty and protect the planet" by offering global programs and immersive executive mentorship that allows social entrepreneurs to develop impact-creating and sustainable solutions. The Miller Center has multiple programs that have accelerated more than 1,300 social enterprises, raised an average of $750,000 in investments (in the first three years post-accelerator), impacted 100,000,000 lives (in the first three years post-accelerator), and involved 163 student fellows. Their Silicon Valley-based Accelerator scales and prepares for "next-level" investment in social enterprises that address women's economic empowerment and climate resilience. The accelerator has a proven curriculum, executive mentors, and leadership coaches that spend up to 180 hours on tailored mentoring and coaching for each social enterprise. The ScaleOut program offers scaling and replication, with executive mentorship to build out scaling plans and aid in the beginning stages of executing those plans. They also provide "Know-How" Playbooks on Last Mile Distribution, Microgrids, and Optical Glasses. Each has 12 modules on all aspects of a business model, practices from leading social enterprises, industry experts, impact investors, and partners. Therefore, the development of a social enterprise is facilitated. This social entrepreneurship center is supported by 300 and more mentors committed to executive-level positions that offer weekly conference calls. After accessing and graduating from these programs, the Miller Center's Accelerator Program alumni have access to a six-month to three-year program in Investment Readiness and Investment Facilitation Program. Furthermore, the alumni who have completed the program at least three years after can take masterclasses, short courses, SCU engagements, peer-to-peer learning, and more opportunities.
PI Training
Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany
Personal Initiative (PI) Training is a psychological entrepreneurship training (https://pi-training.org/). It was developed by Prof. Michael Frese, Prof. Michael Gielnik, and their team at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. PI Training is specifically designed for entrepreneurs in developing and emerging countries because entrepreneurship is a major driver of the economic development in such countries. Embedded in scientific research projects, PI Training equips entrepreneurs with a proactive mindset. It enables them to grow their businesses and create jobs, thereby contributing to reducing poverty in their countries. PI Training is very cost-effective, paying back training costs within approximately one year. We use a train-the-trainer (TTT) approach, enabling local trainers to teach PI Training successfully. Once they pass the TTT workshop, they are skilled in delivering PI Training to entrepreneurs. In addition, the team developed student training for entrepreneurial promotion (STEP).
Poverty Solution
University of Michigan, USA
Poverty Solutions' action-based research is focused on partnerships, pilots, and even large-scale programs that determine what is most effective at preventing and alleviating poverty and bringing new discoveries to policymakers and community stakeholders. Poverty Solutions engages community organizations and individuals in seeking new solutions to prevent and alleviate poverty. We partner with centers at U-M deeply embedded in this work, such as the Ginsberg Center, Detroit URC, and Center for Educational Outreach, and look for ways the University can contribute to solving poverty challenges at the community level. Since the initiative began in 2016, we have engaged faculty, students, community organizations, and local policymakers in discussions about poverty. Our goal is to share knowledge with and learn from our larger community through community conversations.
Social Entrepreneurship at the Margins
Santa Clara University, USA
Beyond the numbers and statistics of refugees, migrants, and enslaved people are the emotional, ethical, and societal costs. The drive toward personal security, to seek better lives for ourselves and our families, to exist harmoniously with others and with our environment—these are basic human needs that transcend borders and laws. Restoring dignity to the world's most vulnerable and marginalized through entrepreneurship embodies the Jesuit mission of Santa Clara University and our location in the heart of Silicon Valley. The Miller Center at SCU is a pioneer in accelerating social enterprises, leveraging its twin strands of DNA: its location in the heart of Silicon Valley, the world's most entrepreneurial ecosystem, and its Jesuit commitment to serve the poor and protect the planet. Miller Center's team explored the question: How can we apply the principles of social entrepreneurship to help the most marginalized among our human family? This question led Miller Center to launch the Social Entrepreneurship at the Margins (SEM) accelerator with two primary goals: 1. Leverage Miller Center's Global Social Benefit Institute (GSBI®) accelerator programs, which alumni praise for helping them achieve operational excellence and secure investments essential to scaling their impact, to similarly help ventures serving and/or led by migrants, refugees, and human trafficking survivors. 2. Accompany the leaders of these social enterprises to better discern what impact models, business models, and technology solutions are of the greatest benefit to those refugees, migrants, and human slaves suffering at the margins of society.
Social Entrepreneurship for Poverty Alleviation (SEPA)
Austin College, USA
The SEPA program is designed to increase Austin College student engagement in the local community, increase collaboration with local NPOs, and provide grant writing training and internships for the students and agencies. Participating students and local NPOs first participate in a two‐day grant‐writing workshop hosted by Austin College. Participating students are then assigned to work with a partnering NPO for the summer and help the agency source and apply for grants. The program provides local non-profits with grant‐writing training, as well as staffing assistance with energetic and intelligent Austin College students facilitating collaboration to address critical local social and economic issues, and finally, providing those Austin College students with outstanding learning opportunities.
South Bend Entrepreneurship and Adversity Program
University of Notre Dame, USA
The South Bend Entrepreneurship and Adversity Program (SBEAP) is a 12-month intervention program working with entrepreneurs in poverty circumstances. It includes six components: six weeks of training, followed by one-on-one consulting, mentoring from successful business owners, connections to community resources, a microcredit program, and progress tracking. SBEAP is a collaborative effort between the University of Notre Dame, the City of South Bend, Project Impact, La Casa de Amistad, the West Side Small Business Resource Center, the North Central Indiana SBDC, Invanti Ventures, the Women's Entrepreneurship Initiative at St, Mary's College, the Notre Dame Federal Credit Union, Ivy Tech, and the Neighborhood Resources Connection. Each year, a mix of educators, subject matter experts, successful entrepreneurs, and others work with entrepreneurs at all stages of venture development. A total of 65 low-income entrepreneurs participate in the SBEAP program each year. While the program fee is $500, almost all participants receive scholarships to help cover all but $25 of the cost. In addition to training and mentoring, examples of the assistance provided will include registering companies, creating websites, modifying the product/service mix, improving inventory policies, enhancing market segmentation and targeting, the launch of social media sites, producing marketing materials, developing bookkeeping systems, re-formulating pricing approaches, and assistance in dealing with suppliers.
South Side Entrepreneurship Connect Program
Syracuse University, USA
The South Side Entrepreneurship Connect Program seeks to establish a vibrant entrepreneurial culture in the South Side and surrounding communities by creating sustainable ventures, infrastructure building, student and faculty engagement through consulting teams, a micro-credit loan fund, training programs for entrepreneurs, and opportunities for minority purchasing. The centerpiece of the program is the South Side Innovation Center (SSIC), a community-based microenterprise incubator operated by the Whitman School at Syracuse. The SSIC provides office space and equipment to foster the creation of new ventures and help existing businesses grow. Located in a modern facility in Syracuse's South Side, the SSIC serves as a small-business resource center, hosting training programs, advising individual business plans, and offering access to mentors and professional contacts. The SSIC is open to small-business entrepreneurs in need of a professional work environment who want help in growing their ventures. Entrepreneurs must also be committed to business development on the South Side and neighboring communities.
Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative (USA)
University of Illinois, USA
Subsistence marketplaces consist of consumer and entrepreneur communities living at a range of low-income levels and are concentrated in developing countries and regions (https://giesbusiness.illinois.edu/experience/academies-centers/subsistence-marketplaces-initiative). Additionally, many individuals in developed countries also live in subsistence. The subsistence marketplaces stream of work pioneered at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is unique in examining the intersection of poverty and marketplaces with a bottom-up orientation. This approach is rooted in a micro-level understanding of life circumstances of consumers, entrepreneurs, and communities. Educational materials are disseminated worldwide through a web portal. This work has led to a unique marketplace literacy educational program SMI seeks to develop and disseminate actionable knowledge for creating sustainable solutions for subsistence marketplaces. Our work connects subsistence and sustainability, and the lessons learned will likely be useful in all contexts to collectively face the challenges confronting humanity. Unique to their approach is a bottom-up orientation that begins with a micro-level understanding of buyers, sellers, and subsistence marketplaces. Their work has created unique synergies between research, teaching, and social initiatives. In all three arenas, their efforts involve the engagement of students, businesses, and social enterprises and a diverse set of faculty and campus entities across different disciplines.
The Global Social Benefit Incubator
Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, USA
For 25 years, Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship has been a global social enterprise movement leader. With an emphasis on climate resilience and women's economic empowerment, accelerating social entrepreneurship to end poverty and protect the planet. Located at Santa Clara University, The Miller Center has served over 1,300 social entrepreneurs based in over 100 countries, impacting hundreds of millions of lives. The organization fuses the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley with the University's heritage of social justice, community engagement, and global impact, guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The Social Enterprise Ecosystem Appalachia
Ohio University, USA – a UPBI Partner
The Social Enterprise Ecosystem (SEE) Appalachia targets positive change in the areas of health and wellness, education, and the environment throughout a 10-county region in Ohio and West Virginia. They do so by assisting social enterprises in their financial and operational sustainability (in every stage).
Tshwane Enterprise Development Programme
University of Pretoria, South Africa
The SMME Capacity Building (Entrepreneurship) Project was launched in 2009 as an initiative by the City of Tshwane (COT) and the University of Pretoria (the service provider), with the goal to empower three different groups of historically disadvantaged citizens with the skills and knowledge that can contribute to their level of economic activity in the COT metropolitan area. The empowerment process involved two main areas, i.e., (i) Contact based training and (ii) Mentoring. Three contact-based training interventions, i.e., Business Start-up, Basic and Advanced Entrepreneurship programmes, were presented. The delegates in the Business Start-up Program are assisted in starting a business. In contrast, delegates on Basic Entrepreneurship Program are assisted in running their micro businesses more effectively, and delegates in the Advanced Program are assisted in growing their established businesses. The mentorship program further supports these training interventions. Each delegate receives coaching through individual and/or small focus group mentoring sessions to assist in the application of the new knowledge towards the development of their respective enterprises. The intervention was based on the following equation:
↑E/P = a P/S x b E/S x c B/S x T/S
E/P: Entrepreneurial Performance
P/S: Personal skills
E/S: Entrepreneurship skills
B/S: Business Management skills
T/S: Technical skills
A total of 87% of delegates attended the mentorship program. After 24 months, 66% of the delegates indicate that they are still running their businesses, which is noteworthy especially given that these delegates had no resources and were very poor. We believe that entrepreneurship can eradicate poverty if the intervention is designed and implemented in this way.
Turner Family Center - Project Pyramid
Vanderbilt University, USA
The Project Pyramid program was initiated in 2006 at Vanderbilt University. This is an interdisciplinary student-led program that provides students with both in-classroom and hands-on learning experiences. It aims to be an avenue for them to meaningfully engage with various organizations worldwide that are socially conscious and advance market-driven solutions. Project Pyramid is guided by the values of sustained partnerships, education, and responsive action in realizing its vision to converge multidisciplinary perspectives and collaborate with impoverished communities toward sustainability.
UABC-Yunus Centre for Social Business and Wellness
Universidad Autónoma de Baja, California
The UABS-Yunus Centre for Social Business and Wellness promotes social business entrepreneurship type 1 (based on initiatives linked to medium and large companies in the region) while providing assistance and training to type 2 social businesses, with the support of university students in support of social-based entrepreneurship.
It also promotes academic and applied research in social business. Its objectives are to:
- Combat the condition of poverty and inequality through the creation and consolidation of social businesses and social innovation.
- Intervene in the community based on specialized methodologies for diagnosis, operation, and impact assessment, with appropriate approaches to the local context.
- Generate solidarity networks of local, regional, national, and international collaboration.
Develop innovative teaching-learning models that allow users and professionals to transmit and acquire technical and solidary skills.
Urban & Community Entrepreneurship Program
University of Pittsburgh, USA
The Urban & Community Entrepreneurship Program (UCEP) helps entrepreneurs overcome the challenges of starting businesses in distressed and underserved neighborhoods and exurban "Main Street" business districts through four major resources: Educational Workshops, Community Power to Prosper Program, Consulting Services, and Collaborative Partnerships. UCEP is committed to advancing entrepreneurship in underserved and moderate-income communities and helping advance business leaders of today and tomorrow prosper. The focus of the Urban and Community Entrepreneurship Program is to help foster economic empowerment by investing in one individual, one job, and one business at a time.
Village Social Outreach and Microbusinesses
Bhagat Phool Singh Women's University, India
The BPS Women's University, through the Village Social Outreach and Microbusinesses program, has adopted five nearby villages, namely Kasanda, Kasandi, Gamri, and Garhi Ujale Khan, as a part of government policy for its social outreach programme. The social outreach programme of the University carried through its various departments mainly focuses on creating and sustaining self-help groups (SHGs) with the help of NGOs and local people for employment-generating activities. The MSM Institute of Ayurveda of the University regularly holds free health check-up camps, cleanliness drives, medical awareness camps, and use of folk- medicines to promote better health of the people in these villages. Punjab National Bank (a premier Public Sectored Bank in India) and the University's social work department jointly impart training under 'The Rural Employment Self Training scheme.', especially to the women in these villages. The training equips participants from these villages with basic talent to initiate micro businesses. The training focuses on the use of local resources and to meet the local requirements besides protecting the natural environment. The joint efforts of the Punjab National Bank and the University are proving pivotal in incentivizing unemployed youth to initiate their own microbusinesses to help them out from the cobweb of poverty and unemployment. The University has also established the Ericsson incubation center to promote new start-ups.
William C. Norris Institute
St. Thomas University, USA - a UPBI Partner
The William C. Norris Institute is a Minnesota-based seed capital fund that invests in "young" companies that address critical unmet social problems by providing funds and assistance. This institute has invested in 47 new ventures as of 2001.
Youth Entrepreneurship Education System (YEES) - UPBI Partner
Puerto Rico
The Youth Entrepreneurship Education System offers support for developing entrepreneurial skill sets. This organization has impacted more than 40,000 students by creating educational projects, courses, and technology to aid the entrepreneurs' stages.