Business POV

The Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center’s (CEC) Future Founders youth entrepreneurship program handed out awards recently to the winners of its business-plan competition: First place went to TheOnlineScout.com, a site that allows student athletes to post videos and stats for college scouts. The two founders behind it are Jose Leon and Slavko Bekovic, both seniors at Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep.

Students from ACE Technical Charter High School also competed, as did other students from Brooks. The Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center’s (CEC) Future Founders youth entrepreneurship program was created to ensure that future generations of entrepreneurs enter the business world as well-prepared and informed as possible. Sponsored by the Motorola Foundation and partnered with the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), the second annual Future Founders program teams up 50 young, passionate and successful entrepreneurs and Motorola staff members with 75 primarily African American and Hispanic students in a mentoring, educational program. Over the course of an entire school year, the volunteers share their experiences from working in business, help the students create business plans and fine-tune their presentation skills. The mentors come from diverse backgrounds and many of them, similar demographics as the students, making it easy to relate to the student’s experiences. The year culminates with a business plan competition amongst the students.

The even took place May 11 at the ESPN Zone in Downtown Chicago