Rock Star Entrepreneurs Launch The Young Entrepreneur Council To Help Young People Overcome Unemployment

Hoboken, NJ (PRWEB) October 13, 2010

Scott Gerber, serial entrepreneur, internationally syndicated small business columnist, and author of the upcoming book, Never Get a Real Job, today announced the launch of the first-ever Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC); an advocacy group made up of many of the worlds most successful young entrepreneurs, business owners and thought leaders. The YEC's mission is to help young people build successful businesses and overcome the devastating epidemics of youth underemployment and unemployment.

"Youth unemployment and underemployment are Gen Y epidemics," said Scott Gerber, the founder of the YEC. "Now, more than ever before, we must teach young people how to create their own streams of income and become self-sufficient small business owners. Who better to do that than their successful entrepreneurial peers."

According to the International Labour Organization, over 81 million young people are unemployed worldwide. Nearly 40% of young people in the U.S. have been unemployed or underemployed since 2008 (Pew Research Center).

"The Young Entrepreneur Council is the first step in a larger campaign to transform millenials into self-sufficient entrepreneurs. I have no doubt that the insights provided by our world class group of young business owners will provide readers with a practical, top notch small business education," said Gerber.

"Young entrepreneurs today need support and advice from those who have already built successful businesses, which is why I'm proud to be part of this project," said Dan Schawbel, author of Me 2.0 and Founder of Millenial Branding.

Initially, YEC members will answer small business questions posed by aspiring Gen Y entrepreneurs on NeverGetaRealJob.com. Readers will be able to ask the Council questions once they sign up for a free user account on the website. The Council will also contribute original content to various media outlets including WSJ, AllBusiness, and Mashable, to name a few.

The Young Entrepreneur Council's first article launched on WSJ.com on October 12, 2010.

The inaugural Young Entrepreneur Council includes:

Aaron Patzer, Mint.com

Adam Gilbert, Chief Body Tutor

Adam Toren, YoungEntrepreneur.com

Anderson Shoenrock, ScanDigital

Annie Wang, Her Campus Media

Anthony David Adams, Credit Covers

Arielle Scott, Gen Juice

Ashley Bodi, Business Beware Radio

Billy Gaines, BPONG

Cameron Johnson, CameronJohnson.com

Cari Sommers, UrbanInterns.com

Dan Schawbel, Millenial Branding

David Hauser, Grasshopper

David Rusenko, Weebly.com

David Siteman Garland, Rise To The Top

Derek Johnson, Tatango.com

Elizabeth Saunders, Real Life E

Gary Whitehill, New York Entrepreneur Week

Genevieve Thiers, SitterCity.com

Harrie Bakst, Carnegie Sports & Entertainment

Ishita Gupta, fear.less

Jack Delosa,

Invest in America Teams with Credit Unions Nationwide to Help Fund Biz Kid$ and its Youth Financial Education Mission

Livonia, MI (Vocus) September 24, 2010

CU Village, through its Invest in America (IIA) program, has pledged $ 700,000 toward the national underwriting of Biz Kid$ , an Emmy Award winning and credit union funded public television series that teaches kids about money management and entrepreneurship. IIA was created to help credit unions grow, support U.S.-based companies like GM and Sprint, and provide members with exclusive discounts.

Created to assist credit unions with doing what they do best putting members first IIAs pledge makes it one of the largest independent sponsors of Biz Kid$ alongside the National Credit Union Foundation. Since the series launch in Jan. 2008, the nationally broadcast program delivers financial education to more than 192 million households each week, and has reached 1.2 million students and teachers via the companion classroom curriculum.

In addition to the $ 700,000 contribution, to help achieve full-funding for the fourth season of Biz Kid$ and jump-start Season 5 funding, IIA is asking each of its credit union and league partners that receive Sprint marketing incentives to join with IIA to raise the remaining $ 1 million needed to complete the 2010 season. This can be achieved by donating 10 percent of their year-end rebate to support the program.

Since its inception Americas credit unions have exclusively funded Biz Kid$ as our industrys gift to financial education, says CU Villages CEO Dave Adams. To date, $ 8,550,000 has been contributed to fund BizKid$ . To continue to thrive as a system program well into the future, Biz Kid$ warrants the collaborative financial support of the credit union community. We anticipate that the nations not-for-profit financial institutions will see this as an opportunity to continue supporting the program without having it affect tightening budgets.

Adams says that, in most cases, the 10 percent donation will have little to no budgetary impact to IIA partners because of the growing success of the Sprint program this past year. He further anticipates that if each of the 2,600 credit union and 46 league IIA partners opts-in to participate, Biz Kid$ will achieve an additional $ 1 million in funding to complete production of the fourth season, as well as establish an unprecedented, sustainable funding source for future seasons.

"This is an incredible gift that CU Village has given the entire credit union system, says John Annaloro, President & CEO of the Washington Credit Union League, whose 501 (c) foundation currently administers Biz Kid$ on behalf of Americas Credit Unions. IIAs underwriting gift and future funding model ensures that the credit union's 'gift' of financial education can remain just thatthe credit union systems exclusive gift. This is a shining example of what our system can do when we work together."

Biz Kid$ is an important credit union initiative that is known to put credit unions in a strong and positive light. As a result, Biz Kid$ has been honored with a Herb Wegner Award, a Daytime Emmy Award, four Emmy nominations, a first place Telly Award, and an Environmental Media Award. By positioning itself as a co-partner of the program, IIA and its participating credit unions and leagues will have the unique opportunity to be associated with this valuable and popular program, as well as gain all of the goodwill and marketing benefits that come with it.

Its expected that this unique initiative will also build further support for IIA, its key partners Sprint and GM, and its success among members, and in turn the collective ability to support Biz Kid$ and other important credit union system initiatives.

In the weeks ahead CU Village will communicate to its IIA partners more about how they can participate in the Biz Kid$ funding initiative. For immediate information, please call 800.262.6285 or email info(at)cu-village(dot)com.

Invest in America is a membership enhancement program that offers credit union members exclusive discounts on products and services provided by U.S. based companies. Utilizing the credit unions ability to leverage their unique relationship, Invest in America is able to successfully market its partnerships and offers incremental sales to partner companies; a stimulus to the economy and; an increased value of credit union membership. Invest in America was created by and is managed by CUcorp and CU Village, subsidiaries of the Michigan Credit Union League.

CU Village is a full-service technology and marketing company with solid expertise across various channels and mediums including print, web, mass media, digital, data, programming and more. We help our clients leverage these tools, using an overall holistic approach and strategic services, to provide them with unparalleled access to all the resources they need to grow their organization from one source CU Village.

Biz Kid$ includes a television component, a website, and a full curriculum that can be used by educators in conjunction with the show. A full curriculum with activities and tests accompanies every episode of the television show, including five core episodes in Spanish. These can be downloaded for free on the shows official website, http://www.bizkids.com, which also hosts a cast blog and newsletter. DVD box sets of the first 26 episodes of Biz Kid$ are also available for purchase for use by credit unions, educators and parents. The show is produced in Seattle, Wash.

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Reset San Francisco Founder And Mayoral Candidate Phil Ting Helps Launch Parkzing Smartphone App To Help Reduce Number Of Cars Towed

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) November 02, 2011

Today, mayoral candidate Phil Ting announced the winner of Reset San Franciscos $ 1,000 mobile app contest to develop an automated towing notification system that allows drivers to know when theyre in a tow away zone.

Aren Sandersen, developer of Parkzing a free mobile application that uses both street cleaning and tow away zone information, worked with the Reset San Francisco team to develop an app that alerts drivers 10 minutes before a tow zone is in effect and also 9pm the night before morning street cleanings.

As soon as a driver parks, he or she launches the application, selects the street location based on the apps built-in GPS technology and then sees a screen with the time and location information. Its that easy.

Phil Ting said, San Franciscans have been clamoring for this product. Supervisor David Chiu introduced legislation to study the idea. Mayor Ed Lee told the press he supports the idea.

But Reset San Francisco is proving we dont need a two-year, multi-million dollar process mired in the old Government 1.0 mindset. Using web 2.0 tools, Sunshine Requests and a little old-fashioned incentive-based marketing, we were able to do in less than two months and for just $ 1,000 what it would have taken City Hall two years and millions of dollars to accomplish, Ting said.

Im running for mayor because I believe city government can and should be as innovative as the people of San Francisco. And Arens Parkzing app is just one small example of how we can make it happen.

Parkzing is a simple, effective app that will help reduce the 150-160 tows that occur in San Francisco each day. You can download the Parkzing iPhone app from Apples iTunes Store here.

ABOUT RESET SAN FRANCISCO:

Reset San Francisco is an offline and online community founded by San Francisco Assessor-Recorder and candidate for mayor Phil Ting. The community has already united more than 20,000 San Franciscans and given them the tools to learn about policy, debate ideas and make their voices heard at City Hall. The ResetSanFrancisco.org community uses web-based Government 2.0 tools to help its members connect with government, and it also organizes in-person forums to connect San Franciscans to each other and to help the community unite around solutions. Learn more at http://www.ResetSanFrancisco.org.

ABOUT PHIL TING:

Phil Ting is the San Francisco Assessor-Recorder who took one of the citys most dysfunctional offices and helped make it work. He has generated more than $ 300 million in new revenue without new taxes through his program of modernization and reform. Ting is both a former business consultant, who helped advise companies seeking to modernize, and the former executive director of one of the Bay Areas leading civil rights organizations. He is bringing the values of a civil rights advocate, the background of a business consultant and the management skills of a leader who is already reforming city government to his campaign for Mayor of San Francisco. Learn more about Phil at http://www.PhilTing.com.

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