Young Entrepreneurs Academy! (YEA!)
Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) transforms students into real, confident entrepreneurs. Through the year-long program, Webster CSD high school students generate business ideas, conduct market research, write business plans, pitch to a panel of investors, and launch their very own companies.
In the spring, Webster Schroeder and Webster Thomas high school students participating in our YEA! program pitch their ideas to local investors (see video below). The Webster YEA! students receiving the largest investment at each year's Investor's Panel advance to the finals of the YEA! Saunders Scholars Bright Ideas college scholarship competition held in June. There they vie for one of three scholarship awards ranging from $20,000 to $30,000 to Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and an opportunity to display their product or service at Imagine RIT: Innovation Creativity Festival.
Webster YEA! welcomes interested persons and businesses to serve as mentors, donors, and investors. Mentors meet with our YEA! entrepreneurs and participate in formative business conversations to help fully develop and realize their proposals. Donors make a financial contribution to our program (in an amount of their choosing) to help support developing student proposals into finished products and provide scholarship funding to selected entrepreneurs. Investors pledge $750 towards student businesses and join us for an in-person Shark Tank-style presentation of student entrepreneur business proposals.
Interested? Please contact program coordinator Jim McEntee at james_McEntee@webstercsd.org.
Webster CSD has been a proud participant in the YEA! since 2009.
