Join us in celebrating all the fantastic young green and social entrepreneurs

Anita Tiessen Chief Executive Officer Youth Business International

This Month We’re Celebrating the Work of Young Green and Social Entrepreneurs.

April 2023 marks the second year we at Youth Business International will dedicate the month to celebrating and championing the many young green and social entrepreneurs supported by our Global Network. Increasingly, more and more young entrepreneurs are motivated to build businesses that deliver social impact and focus on profit with purpose. They are young entrepreneurs working to solve some of the greatest environmental and social challenges of our time, whether they are in Lagos or Lima, Tokyo or Toronto, or Myanmar or Madrid. 
 
At YBI, we believe entrepreneurship can unlock the potential of young people as agents and leaders of change, creating vital economic and employment opportunities in the process. It continues to be our ambition to provide these young green and social entrepreneurs with the support they need to grow and sustain their businesses and we are on a journey with our global network to develop the most effective approaches, methodologies and tools to achieve this goal.  
 
Over the last year, we have launched our positioning paper on green and social entrepreneurship, supported by Accenture, which shares YBI’s definition of a green or social enterprise. The paper explores the specific support young green and social entrepreneurs need to succeed and defines our role in driving social and green youth entrepreneurship. We also unveiled a Green and Social Toolkit with tools for our global network of members to use to support young entrepreneurs whose business has a green or social purpose. 

Gathering Insights to Support Young Green and Social Entrepreneurs  

To build on these, we are staging four events during April to leverage our Global Network’s expertise and experience in supporting young green and social entrepreneurs. During the events, we’ll dig into some key topics with our Network members to better understand how we can collectively provide the best possible support to young entrepreneurs. We know that to do this we must reach out to work alongside other ecosystem players. So, in addition to our members, each session will bring in speakers who play a key role in enabling young entrepreneurs to thrive. We are looking forward to welcoming speakers from organisations such as the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment and The Possibilists. 

Spotlighting Young Green and Social Entrepreneurs 

During April, we’ll be sharing stories about young entrepreneurs whose businesses deliver environmental or social impact. We’ll be including the winners of our Business for Good Award and Green Business of the Year Award from our Global Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. Additionally, we’ll be spotlighting the businesses conceived by other young entrepreneurs whose creativity and commitment to finding solutions to challenges in the world they see around them shines through.  

Hearing from our Members  

Our Global Network of members, working in almost 50 countries, provides young green and social entrepreneurs with a combination of training, mentoring, access to finance and other business development services. We’ll be hearing from them on why young entrepreneurs whose businesses put purpose before profit matter to them.

Invest in our Planet on this year’s Earth Day 

This year’s theme for Earth Day on 22 April is ‘Invest in our Planet’, which draws attention to the need for us all to commit time, resources and energy to solving climate and environmental issues. We continue to be inspired by the many young entrepreneurs supported by our Global Network who are doing just that and we’ll be showcasing their businesses on this special day.  
 
Do follow us on our social channels to find out more about the young entrepreneurs doing great things around the world to create better futures for us all.