News
The Prince of Wales to celebrate entrepreneurship in
Canada
06 November 2009
The Prince of Wales will tomorrow meet a number
of successful young Canadian entrepreneurs at an event held in
Vancouver, British Columbia.
The meeting is part of an official visit to
the country by His Royal Highness and will be hosted by the
Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF), a national charity
dedicated to helping young people become entrepreneurs.
His Royal Highness will meet 24 exceptional
CYBF entrepreneurs, representing provinces from all across Canada,
including Shanda Jerrett, founder of GumDrops Wet Weather Boutique
and CYBF 2009 Best Business Award Winner for British Columbia; and
Ken LeBlanc, co-owner of PropertyGuys.com and CYBF 2005 Best
Business Award Winner for New Brunswick.
CYBF supports hundreds of young entrepreneurs
each year and is part of the global network of organisations led by
Youth Business International (YBI), whose President is The Prince
of Wales.
The Prince of Wales has played a pivotal role
in the development of youth entrepreneurship around the world over
the past three decades, helping YBI expand its network to cover 40
countries in six continents.
CYBF is the official host in Canada for Global
Entrepreneurship Week, the world’s largest celebration of
entrepreneurship and innovation, which takes place 16-22 November.
Youth Business International is a global partner of the Week.
The second annual Global Entrepreneurship Week
will take place in more than 85 countries around the world.
Co-founded in 2008 by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in the
United States and Make Your Mark, a business-led, government-backed
campaign in the United Kingdom, the Week connects young people
through local, national and global activities designed to help them
explore their potential as self-starters and innovators.
Last year, the Week reached more than 3
million people, who attended 25,420 activities in 77 countries.
This year, an even larger impact is expected, demonstrating the
catalytic nature of entrepreneurship.
“Global Entrepreneurship Week is helping
encourage young people to believe in themselves and to realize that
they can make a difference to society,” said Andrew Devenport,
chief executive of Youth Business International.
Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Ewing
Marion Kauffman Foundation, will join The Prince of Wales at St
James’s Palace for the YBI Entrepreneur of the Year Awards which
are at the centre of the official launch of Global Entrepreneurship
Week in London on 16 November.
“This is the message of Global
Entrepreneurship Week,” Schramm said. “I can take control of my
life. I can make my own life better. I can expand my own human
dignity and I can take my fellow citizens along into the future
that we can create. The Prince of Wales and Youth Business
International are inspiring young people across the world to do
just this.”
About Global Entrepreneurship
Week
With the goal to inspire young people to
embrace innovation, imagination and creativity, Global
Entrepreneurship Week will encourage youth to think big, turn their
ideas into reality, and make their mark. From 16-22 November 2009,
millions of young people around the world will join a growing
movement to generate new ideas and seek better ways of doing
things. Tens of thousands of activities are being planned in dozens
of countries. GEW is founded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman
Foundation and the Make Your Mark campaign. For more information,
visit http://www.unleashingideas.org and
follow @unleashingideas on Twitter.
About Youth Business International
(YBI)
Youth Business International is a not-for-profit organisation
that leads a global network of independent country initiatives
helping young people to start their own business and create
employment. Through our network we assist young entrepreneurs
unable to find support elsewhere, with a combination of access to
capital, volunteer mentoring, and other business development
services. Our approach enables the launch of thousands of new
enterprises and significantly increases business survival and
growth – key factors in job creation and sustainable economic
development. YBI was founded in the UK in 2000 and is one of The
Prince’s Charities, a group of not-for-profit organisations of
which HRH The Prince of Wales is President. The YBI Network spans
40 countries across six continents. More at http://www.youthbusiness.org.
About the Canadian Youth Business
Foundation (CYBF)
The Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF)
is the ‘go to’ place for youth entrepreneurship. As a national
charity, we are dedicated to growing our nation’s economy one young
entrepreneur at a time. We look at character not collateral, when
providing youth, age 18-34, with pre-launch coaching, business
resources, start-up financing and mentoring, to help them launch
and sustain a successful entrepreneurial business.
Founded in 1996, CYBF has invested to date in
more than 3,300 young entrepreneurs, whose businesses have created
more than 16,600 new jobs, $93 million in tax revenue and hundreds
of millions of dollars in sales and export revenue. CYBF delivers
its program coast to coast through a national network of more than
150 community partners and 3,000 volunteers including business
mentors. More at http://www.cybf.ca.