This summer, Microsoft demonstrated its longtime commitment to empowering youth to reach their potential through a YouthSpark grant to BUILD. BUILD’s four-year high school program instills youth with fundamental leadership skills in a unique way: through
entrepreneurship. The organization partners with high schools in under-resourced communities to teach students how to start and run their own businesses. They serve over 1,600 students in four regions across the US: the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Washington, D.C., and, most recently, New York City. They have ambitious plans to expand to ten more regions in the next eight years.
Alongside BUILD staff, volunteer mentors, and their teammates, students design, prototype, and pitch their business products to real Venture Investors. Through the process, students learn not only academic and business skills, but also a unique set of non-cognitive skills – “Spark Skills” BUILD calls them: collaboration, communication, innovation, problem-solving, self-management, and grit. These are the skills that make great CEOs, youth leaders, and college graduates.
One student, Steffany, entered the BUILD program as a shy freshman. At BUILD, she embraced the leadership role of CEO, and managed a personalized sunglasses company, “Stunna Shadez.” She is now the first in her family to go to college, and has already created a new college-going expectation: her younger cousin now has his eyes set on Stanford.
”I think the hardest thing I had to face in the past couple of years was figuring out how college worked in the first place,” Steffany reflects. “My parents immigrated to the United States from Latin American countries, and had no clue how the college system worked here.” With support from BUILD, Steffany learned to approach life’s challenges with the resilient mind of an entrepreneur. “The BUILD program taught me how to strive towards my goals without letting any barriers that had previously existed in my life stop me from continuing on the path to fulfill those goals. BUILD has also helped me greatly with being much more confident in myself and holding my head up high even when times get really rough, which I know will come in handy when I’m far away from home.”
Staffany credits BUILD’s staff and mentors with helping apply her skills as an entrepreneur to school. “It truly has become a second family that has taught me everything from learning how to run a business, to learning all the bits and pieces about the college process. BUILD’s help throughout these past years helped me so much that I actually got into my top choice school, which was Wellesley College.”
BUILD’s work of equipping at-risk students with the skills essential to college and career success would not be possible without the support of dedicated volunteers and generous supporters, like Microsoft. To learn more about BUILD’s impact on the Bay Area community and how you can be a part of our students’ success, please visit www.build.org.
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Posted by BUILD: Through entrepreneurship-based, experiential learning, BUILD ignites the potential of youth from under-resourced communities and equips them for high school, college, and career success.
