SAP and NFTE Challenge Young Entrepreneurs

Jacqueline Montesinos Suarez
Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, SAP North America

Dean Sivara, VP of Ideation at SAP, visits high school classrooms throughout the San Francisco Bay Area to promote and recruit students to the SAP Tech Innovation Challenge, developed with the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).

The SAP Tech Innovation Challenge incentivizes young people from low-income communities to pursue business ideas using technology (such as websites and mobile apps). NFTE Bay Area students who participate in this Challenge are invited to attend workshops with dedicated SAP volunteers in Palo Alto to refine details of their business plans. Later in the spring, Challenge participants and NFTE students across the country present their business plans, with the goal of advancing to the National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge. Finalists compete to win cash prizes and NFTE recognition. Past winners created innovative businesses such as “New Types,” a service company that provides individualized computer tutoring in the homes of senior citizens and “TattooID,” which sells temporary safety tattoos for children.

Dean has worked with NFTE for several years, and submits they are an ideal partner for SAP. “Their focus on empowering young people to discover their entrepreneurship spirit needed in the business world is invaluable. I am always inspired when I talk to the students. Their ideas are incredible and it’s important that SAP supports great programs like this,” he says. SAP hopes to build on the success of the 2013 Tech Innovation Challenge to take this to the national level by 2014.

The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship inspires young people from low-income communities to find their paths to success. They work closely with educators in high-need schools to re-engage students in learning, introduce them to business concepts, and open up their possibilities for the future.