YBI’s 2024 Highlights

2024 has been a defining year for Youth Business International (YBI). We’ve witnessed the incredible resilience, ingenuity, and determination of young entrepreneurs who are not just building businesses but transforming their communities and addressing some of the world’s most pressing challenges. These changemakers are a driving force behind sustainable economic growth, social equity, and environmental protection.

Leading the only global network dedicated to youth entrepreneurship support, YBI has a unique perspective on the support, tools, resources, and connections young entrepreneurs worldwide need to succeed. This year, we have expanded our global network’s reach, strengthened our impact, and deepened our advocacy for systemic change. Here’s a look back at some of the key milestones that made this year exceptional.

Empowering a generation for change

At YBI, we champion the transformative power of young entrepreneurs to drive economic growth while advancing social impact and environmental sustainability—they are our generation for change. Guided by this vision, in June the first ever Youth Business International Bootcamp convened exceptional green and social entrepreneurs supported by our members, from 20 countries for an intensive week in London, fostering collaboration, expert-led learning, and innovation, culminating in a pitch competition. From this talented cohort, nine outstanding finalists were selected for the YBI Global Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, celebrating excellence in climate, sustainable, and social entrepreneurship.

In October, the finalists attended our Global Youth Entrepreneurship Summit 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya, which brought together entrepreneurship practitioners and experts from 150 organisations across the globe, including representatives across YBI members. Over three inspiring days, participants engaged in interactive sessions focused on responsible entrepreneurship, innovative business practices, and diverse support systems and networked with like-minded individuals and organisations.

A highlight of the Summit was the crowning of Adaeze Akpagbula, founder of Farmspeak Technology, as the Global Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2024 for her groundbreaking work in improving livelihoods and championing sustainable farming in Nigeria. Adaeze also received the Climate Entrepreneurship Award, with Dareem Jeffrey from Trinadad and Tobago and Keerthana Vangapally from India taking home the Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship Awards, respectively. We can’t wait to see what remarkable achievements lie ahead for these visionary winners.

Expanding our global network and driving international collaboration

As the leaders of the only global youth entrepreneurship network, YBI holds a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities faced by young entrepreneurs worldwide. It also enables us to unite enterprise support organisations (ESOs) across our network to collaborate, share insights, and innovate to deliver more effective support for young changemakers.

In 2024, we proudly welcomed 14 new members from France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Serbia, South Africa, St Lucia, and the UK, extending our reach to 66 members operating across 85 countries. To deepen international collaboration, we ran our first Member Learning Exchange Scheme, facilitating knowledge-sharing and peer-to-peer learning. 20 YBI members from around the world engaged in the funded “study visits” to learn from one another and scale impactful practices across the network and we are pleased to renew the scheme in 2025.

A major milestone this year was the launch of the YBI Learning Portal in March—a comprehensive hub for members to access self-paced courses, webinars, and interactive resources. The portal equips YBI members with tools to empower young entrepreneurs to build sustainable and successful businesses. It has also strengthened the YBI Network community by providing a dedicated space for discussions on entrepreneur support delivery and enabling the distribution of YBI resources in multiple languages. Over 100 YBI member representatives used the Learning Portal in 2024, and our courses and resources were accessed over 1,000 times.

YBI has developed a comprehensive Green and Social Entrepreneurship Toolkit to support young entrepreneurs in creating social, green, and climate-focused enterprises that address critical challenges in their communities. Created in collaboration with six YBI members from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, the toolkit is now accessible to all YBI members on the YBI Learning Portal. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive: 100% of users would recommend the toolkit, 88% reported improved ability to achieve social and environmental goals, and 83% credited it with their recent successes. Importantly, participating members have established themselves as leaders in social and green entrepreneurship, forged new funding partnerships, and expanded their initiatives for greater impact.

Accelerating impact for young entrepreneurs through funded programmes

Throughout 2024, YBI delivered and launched a diverse range of global programmes, empowering underserved young people with the tools, resources, and connections to build and scale thriving businesses.

At the end of June, we celebrated the successful conclusion of the BEST by Futuremakers project, implemented by our member Youth Business Poland and funded by Standard Chartered Foundation as part of Futuremakers by Standard Chartered. The programme supported displaced young Ukrainians in Poland, helping to launch 200 businesses and create over 200 jobs in its final year. In the second half of 2024, we were pleased to launch two new programmes funded by Standard Chartered Foundation: our Empower and Elevate and Unlocking Opportunities for Inclusive Financial Growth programmes, focused on fostering financial health and empowerment for marginalized young entrepreneurs across seven countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.

Through our High Flyers programme, funded by the Argidius Foundation, ten YBI members in eight countries continued to implement our High Flyers guidelines, a set of tools and resources designed to support young entrepreneurs with high-growth potential to take their business to the next level. In April, we were pleased to launch High Flyers South Korea with our member Work Together Foundation, funded by J.P. Morgan, supporting early-stage young entrepreneurs to secure funding and expand their market reach, and contributing feedback on our High Flyers guidelines.

Also in South Korea, this year we completed our COVID-19 Recovery Programme for Social Entrepreneurs, funded by Google.org. Over the course of two years, our members Work Together Foundation and Impact Square successfully supported 1,384 social ventures and small and medium-sized enterprises to adapt and improve their businesses through both, in-person support and a new online platform for learning and networking.

With a continued focus on social and green youth enterprises, this year saw ten additional delivery partners join Pilot 2 of the YBI Sustainability Toolkit Programme funded by JP Morgan Chase. In November, all 15 YBI members and delivery partners from Germany, France, South Africa, Spain and the UK who have participated in the programme delivery met in Madrid for a Community of Practice event. Their learnings will be added to the toolkit which is now available to all YBI members in four languages via our Learning Portal.

Continuing our mission to increase the inclusivity of entrepreneurship support, this year YBI also delivered the Seeking Economic Empowerment and Resilience for Refugees and Migrants (SEER) Programme, funded by Accenture. YBI worked with our UK member The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network (TERN) to develop a 16-module toolkit for YBI members. Increased support has now been trialed and delivered by four members in Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. The resource is now being made available to the rest of the YBI network.

The Ohpikiwin Series, Journey to Financial Empowerment, funded by Accenture, started in September 2022 and is drawing to a close at the end of this year. Over two years, alongside the programme run by YBI member Futurpreneur in Canada, YBI’s Indigenous working group has developed resources, shared best practices, and supported Indigenous young entrepreneurs to start successful businesses. We’ll be sharing programme highlights in the new year.

Advocating for young entrepreneurs globally

Systemic change is essential to ensure all young people have a fair chance at entrepreneurship. In 2024, YBI has been driving this change by advocating for young entrepreneurs and addressing key barriers through policy reforms, skills development, and fostering innovation.

We launched our Financial Health Theory of Change, a framework to improve access to financial services for young entrepreneurs. Recognizing the financing gap for informal youth-led businesses in sub-Saharan Africa, we collaborated with our Kenyan member Somo on a policy paper offering actionable recommendations for governments, financial institutions, and development agencies.

Together with our member Development Solutions in Mongolia, we published a policy paper highlighting the critical role of youth-led green and social enterprises in tackling global challenges. The paper calls for dedicated funding, streamlined regulations, and integration of green and social entrepreneurship skills into education systems to support these businesses.

In the UK, we partnered with The Entrepreneurs Network to publish a briefing paper titled ‘Empowering the Future’ outlining ten policy recommendations, including enhancing access to finance, simplifying business registration, and reinstating the Enterprise Allowance Scheme to support entrepreneurs coming out of unemployment. We launched the paper at the UK House of Commons with Lord Mawson, one of Britain’s leading social entrepreneurs.

At our Global Summit, we introduced our Youth Entrepreneurship Framework developed with the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN). This resource provides 50 actionable recommendations for tackling youth entrepreneurship challenges, particularly for green and social enterprises, supported by case studies from GEN’s Atlas, the world’s largest repository of entrepreneurship policies and strategies.

Looking Ahead to 2025

Young entrepreneurs hold the key to solving some of the most pressing challenges of our time. Whether tackling climate change, creating sustainable jobs, or fostering innovation that benefits marginalized communities, their potential to drive meaningful change is boundless. Yet, their path is often fraught with barriers—access to funding, regulatory hurdles, and a lack of tailored support that recognizes their unique potential.

2025 is a pivotal year for accelerating action, and it also marks YBI’s 25th anniversary—a milestone that highlights our long-standing commitment to empowering young entrepreneurs. As we celebrate this achievement, YBI is calling on governments, financial institutions, businesses, and development organisations to step up and join us in building an ecosystem that enables young entrepreneurs to thrive. The challenges we face are global in scale, and collaboration across borders is essential.

We are committed to scaling our impact in 2025. Let us rally behind the generation that will shape the future. Together, we can break down systemic barriers, open doors to opportunity, and unleash the full potential of young entrepreneurs as agents of change. The time to act is now.