RIT’s Saunders College of Business Hosts YEA! Regional Business Competition, May 1

Top three students will present their business plans to the public at Imagine RIT festival

Here’s the challenge: The contestants have three minutes to persuade companies or business leaders to invest a cool $1 million into their start-up businesses. Which entrepreneurs have the best innovations to achieve success and become the next CEO of their own companies?

The E. Philip Saunders College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology is the official host site for the first Young Entrepreneurs Academy Regional Business Competition. Featured YEA finalists (high school students ages 11 to 17) will present their business plans to a panel of judges from 4 to 6 p.m. on Friday, May 1, at RIT’s B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

The top three winning finalists will earn scholarship awards and the opportunity to showcase their businesses to the community at the second annual Imagine RIT: Innovation and Creativity Festival on Saturday, May 2. The YEA students hope to dispel the myth that “you’re never too young to be an innovator and create your own destiny.”

Developed at the University of Rochester in 2004, the YEA program enables educational institutions to provide successful entrepreneurship training courses and mentorship for youths to transform their ideas into real businesses that create economic and social value. It has expanded to additional sites at the State University College at Geneseo, Niagara University, Victor High School, Greece Athena High School and Lake Zurich High School in Illinois.

The YEA competition will feature winning team members from all six-program sites. To register for the event, contact Donna Slavin at (585) 475-2199 or dslavin@saunders.rit.edu.

EDITOR’S NOTE: For more information on the Young Entrepreneurs Academy, call (585) 272-3535 or visit www.yeausa.org


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