As an introduction, we are the YouthBank team, an all-volunteer group of students, professionals, and community leaders working on four continents to  realize one revolutionary vision: that street youth in the world’s biggest cities and most formidable slums can become socially responsible business owners and pull their communities out of poverty.

Although many of you are likely already familiar with our mission and impact model, as a refresher, YouthBank is a small business incubator connecting street youth (aged 18-28) with the skills, mentors, and resources they need to launch their own businesses and pull themselves out of poverty. Fundamentally, we invest in youth as agents of community leadership and economic development.

Through rigorous research and market surveys, we’ve developed a revolutionary business model: a network of YouthBank Centers that employ, train, and then invest in young people with lots of potential but few resources.

Each YouthBank Center acts as a community hub and a living business school classroom. Each aims to be a financially sustainable engine of entrepreneurship. In August 2009, we took action by launching a YouthBank Center in Lagos, Nigeria. We'll be posting a lot of photos and videos from this transformative trip in the weeks to come.

We’ve already been invited to bring YouthBank Centers to cities all over Nigeria, as well as to Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, and El Salvador. Our innovation team is very busy with tailoring a scaling strategy that would work globally!

Please join us on our journey – we’re excited to:

• Hear about your ideas and experiences,
• Share what we’re learning from our YouthBank adventures, and
• Celebrate the amazing people we’re meeting along the way!