Growing up around a kitchen table where business regularly dominated family conversations, Deborah Sternberg is no stranger to entrepreneurship. Now, she’s making sure the same holds true for Baton Rouge area teenagers, with a focus on cultivating the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Sternberg is gearing up for the next class of students to participate in Young Entrepreneurs Academy of Baton Rouge, the local affiliate of a national nonprofit she brought to the Capital Region last year. Throughout the seven-month program, a select group of high school students attend weekly sessions at LSU’s E. J. Ourso College of Business to generate business ideas, write business plans, pitch to a panel of investors and launch their own companies.
In May, 26 students graduated from the program’s inaugural class, registering 15 businesses with the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office.
But Sternberg is already exploring ways to expand its reach even further, such as soliciting school faculty and staff members to act as “ambassadors” for the program to generate more interest.
“We don’t want to lose young people going to other cities to launch great ideas,” Sternberg says. “We want to grow what we already have, and make sure it’s sustainable so those young people see the value in staying here.”
Sternberg hopes the networking opportunities and residual relationship-building offered by YEA will close achievement gaps—such as for women and racial and ethnic minorities, among others—that she’s seen permeate the business world.
Read the full story about Sternberg, which originally appeared in The Network.
