NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Fashion boutiques, specialty foods, pop culture magazines and educational guide books are among the student businesses to be featured at The Goldman Sachs Foundation Youth Entrepreneurship Expo, to be held on November 9, 2005, from 4:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m., at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York City.
A select group of 25 talented students from around the country who have excelled in entrepreneurship education programs offered by some of the nation's top non-profit organizations will participate in the annual exposition.
The Expo concludes months of diligent and creative work by hundreds of students in entrepreneurship competitions. The students represent the "best of the best" from organizations serving high potential as well as low income and underrepresented youth, including the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, the Center for Talented Youth at The Johns Hopkins University, Prep for Prep, Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, and A Better Chance.
Students will showcase their business ventures and will deliver brief presentations to an audience of business professionals, teachers, parents and judges. Students will be evaluated on different competition criteria including best marketing and best communication skills. Top competitors will be awarded cash prizes ranging from $250 to $1,000.
A sampling of some of the teen participants and their businesses:
-- Frasat Ahmad, 15, Shamsul Hussain, 16, and Steve Menendez, 16,
cofounders of Glean Magazine, designed to educate fellow teens
about a wide range of topics from politics to current events
to new vocabulary words.
-- Helen Barcenas, 15, Peter Barrios, 15, Camille Calloway, 15,
and Gabriel Parocua, 15, and their business Construct Wear, a
partnership that produces and sells T-shirts, sweatshirts, and
hats decorated with "graffiti art."
-- Jane Chen, 15, founder of iShell by JXC, which manufacturers
fashionable iPod cases.
-- Lillian Garcia, Raymond Germosen and Catherine Ok, founders of
New York Candy Company, which markets specialty candy and gum
to teens in Manhattan.
-- Emily Gomez, Paris Lingard, Charsity Odiase and Patricia
Rojas, founders of Verbalocity, an educational board game
directed at high school students, which focuses on vocabulary,
spelling and sentence structure.
As Ahmad, a student at the Manhattan Center for Science and Math explained, "Entrepreneurship has provided me with self-confidence and to depend more on myself rather than hoping someone else will pick up the burden for taking care of me. Running my own business had definitely made my life more interesting."
The Expo comes at a time when interest among young people in owning and operating a small business is growing. A series of Gallup Polls found that nearly seven out of 10 youth (aged 14-19) were interested in becoming entrepreneurs. Additionally, research conducted by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation shows that more than four out of ten kids ages 9-12 say they would like to start their own business. Among the most commonly cited reasons for starting a business in this age group were to "follow a dream" and "help other people."
Furthermore, compelling evidence from researchers at Harvard University indicates that youth who are taught about entrepreneurship show a positive change in attitude and strong success orientation, and are more likely to be focused on academic and professional achievements and aspirations and leadership.
The study, conducted on behalf of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) by Dr. Michael Nakkula, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, provides compelling evidence of the positive benefits youth entrepreneurship programs can have on school engagement and future orientation.
The findings reveal that compared to a group of their peers, students enrolled in entrepreneurship education programs:
-- Demonstrated a 32 percent increase in interest in attending
college
-- Showed a 44 percent increase in occupational aspiration
-- Increased independent reading by four percent; and
-- Increased leadership behaviors as measured by the likelihood
of students taking initiative and leading in business, arts,
and sports activities outside of the class by 13 percent
"These findings reinforce our conviction that youth entrepreneurship programs are particularly effective at keeping students from underrepresented backgrounds on track academically and can be a significant force in driving them toward high achievement and leadership," said Stephanie Bell-Rose, President of The Goldman Sachs Foundation.
"Many neighborhoods are filled with bright children who just need help finding their talents," said Michael Caslin, head of NFTE's Metro New York office, an organizer of the Entrepreneurship Expo. "By exposing these students to entrepreneurship, we expand their capacity, unleash their creativity, and encourage their individual growth."
About The Goldman Sachs Foundation
The Goldman Sachs Foundation (www.gs.com/foundation) is a global philanthropic organization funded by The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. The Foundation's mission is to promote excellence and innovation in education and to improve the academic performance and lifelong productivity of young people worldwide. It achieves this mission through a combination of strategic partnerships, grants, loans, private sector investments, and the deployment of professional talent from Goldman Sachs. Funded in 1999, the Foundation has awarded grants of $62 million since its inception, providing opportunities for young people in more than 20 countries.
The Foundation supplements its financial support with social and intellectual capital from Goldman Sachs. By drawing upon the firm's leadership development expertise and commitment to education, the Foundation is able to maximize the impact of its investments.
About NFTE
The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (www.nfte.com) is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, whose mission is to teach entrepreneurship to young people from low-income communities to enhance their economic productivity by improving their business, academic, and life skills. NFTE is headquartered in New York City. The organization reached over 17,000 young people in 2003 and has trained teachers and youth workers in 44 states and 16 countries.