NFTE National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge

At this year's Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE)'s?National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge, Slalom was blessed to receive the 2023 Corporate Volunteerism Award sponsored by Alper Family Foundation. You can read all about the student winners in this summary. by J.D. LaRock, J.D., Ed.D. The full replay is on YouTube.

On November 17th, we will have a Fuel the Future fund raising event where we ask supporters to donate the cost of their morning fuel (coffee, fruit cup, oatmeal, bagel) to NFTE here or via the QR code below.

After 8 years of volunteering, this was my first visit to the annual event. In the past Alex Sathish-Van Atta went along with Dana Anderson . This year, we were hosted by Scott Nasatir, Ed.D. , Jane Walsh and Anthony C. from Chicago.

Our Slalom team included Tom Kauffman , Scott Kellman , Nutan Keen from NYC and Yolanda Scott Weston from Washington DC and Matthew Jortberg . Important contributors over the year, Victoria-Leigh Parisi and Jill Stein ??????? , could not join us.

Forty-six finalist businesses from NFTE's regional challenges around the country competed at the 17th annual?NFTE National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge, presented by the?Citi Foundation?and?EY. This event is NFTE's highest-profile business plan pitch competition of the year.?It?culminates with the top 3 young finalists competing in front of an invited audience and VIP panel of judges for their share of?$18,000 in prizes. The winner was Raneem Al Suwaidani of?The Met School in Providence, RI for her food truck rental business, Lillypad. (watch her pitch on YouTube here.) She won $10,000 and a 1-on-1 mentorship session with the People’s Shark, the incredible?Daymond John.

This past year was another amazing sequence to see high school students from the Midwest region learn to build and pitch business plans. The Midwest competition was in Chicago in May, where we met the team from Funkytown Brewery .

The past 2 years, we've helped close the "digital divide" by sourcing about 50 laptops from Slalom Chicago. We donated to students with Danny Gray at Thornton Township High School District 205, Tony Capozziello at Beloit?Memorial High?and Lisa Baumrucker Hanneman and Jeffrey Thoelecke with the Youth Services of Glenview & Northbrook. That night, we met and surprised St Louis student, Tobias Maserang with a new laptop for his business Crewtawn's Digital Art Commissions.

This fall, NFTE is in need of volunteers for both online an in person mentoring sessions all over the country. Visit https://www.nfte.com/volunteers/ to look up schools and events near you, or DM me or other board members, Pramit Mehta , Mike Carpenter , Maxine Clark , Siddique Hameed , Carla Jackson, Chris Moore, Venu Raghaven, Gary Weintraub , Gary VonderHaar , Kevin Wilson and Sen. Brian Willams to learn more.

NFTE , the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, ignites the entrepreneurial mindset with unique learning experiences that empower students to own their futures. A global nonprofit founded in 1987, NFTE provides high-quality entrepreneurship education to middle?school, high school, and postsecondary students. NFTE brings the power of entrepreneurship to students, regardless of family income, community resources, special needs, gender identity, race, or ethnicity. NFTE has educated more than a million students, delivering?our programs in school, out of school, in-person, online, or through hybrid models.