Next Gen Youth Entrepreneurship Summit in Flint part of national movement

Carman-Ainsworth senior Kimori Nelson loves cooking and baking, and she has a dream to one day own two restaurants, a bakery and a sweets shop. At age 17, she’s already well on her way. She’s launched a food business called Creative Desires that sells clever concoctions like caramel apple cupcakes, ham and cheese waffles, and bacon and egg donuts.

Kamryn King, a junior at Atherton High School, has an idea for a solar powered cell phone case that would charge your phone when you’re outdoors hiking or gardening.

Goodrich junior Ryser Jenkins sews and sells wearable art, and Bendle senior Emma Mose has an idea for an electronic dog feeder that fills itself, aiding pet owners with disabilities.

There was no shortage of amazing business ideas among the nearly 60 students who attended the inaugural Next Gen Youth Entrepreneurship Summit. The event took place recently at the Riverfront Conference Center at University of Michigan-Flint and featured students from 13 Genesee County high schools.

The summit is a great example of what’s happening with the youth entrepreneurship movement across the country, encouraging young people to think outside of the box when it comes to their futures and careers. The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation is a longtime supporter of the youth entrepreneurship field, having awarded 77 grants totaling nearly $15.3 million since 2007.

“Education is extremely important to the Mott Foundation and has been since the inception of our organization,” said Arielle Milton, program officer for the Mott Foundation. “In particular, youth entrepreneurship education provides additional experiences for young people. Whether they plan to start a business or explore other pursuits, we believe the entrepreneurial mindset is critical to young people’s success in school and life.”

Since 2017, across the nation and in its backyard in Flint and Genesee County, the Mott Foundation has sought to expand access to entrepreneurship education, inspired by the vision that every child should have the opportunity to learn about and experience entrepreneurship, Milton said.

The summit aims to connect, inspire and empower the next generation of entrepreneurs in Michigan and Genesee County. The goal is to activate a new generation of emerging entrepreneurs focused on solving community obstacles.

For Nelson, the event energized her and reminded her that her hard work will pay off.

“I learned that (entrepreneurship) is about trial and error,” Nelson said. “I’m not going to sell as much as I would hope to sometimes, and that’s OK. It’s just the fact that I keep trying, and I keep going and learning new things. You’ve got to be creative and find ways to make people happy and to make yourself memorable.”

Events like the summit help ensure a new generation of change agents are prepared to solve challenges with an entrepreneurial skill set, said Dylan Gambardella, CEO and co-founder of New York City-based Next Gen HQ. The summit was supported by Next Gen HQ and the NextGen Chamber of Commerce, based in Washington D.C., with funding from the Mott Foundation and operational support from the Hopewell Fund. The Genesee Intermediate School District also helped to coordinate the event.

“We are thrilled to host the Next Gen Youth Entrepreneurship Summit in Flint,” Gambardella said. “This event encapsulates the very ‘why’ behind our founding of Next Gen HQ. We exist to empower every young person to own their career, and this event is a momentous way to help our next generation leaders do exactly that. This is not just another event. We are nurturing a community of future leaders poised to create meaningful change.”

The Genesee County event is part of a national effort to empower young people to become entrepreneurs. Fostering entrepreneurship at the high school level can be a catalyst for building an inclusive economy, which can be a model for the country, said Eddie Monroy, executive director of the NextGen Chamber.

At the summit, students participated in focus groups to have their voices heard on how the NextGen Chamber could understand the challenges and opportunities for aspiring youth business leaders. Their voices will be added to a NextGen Chamber youth entrepreneurship statewide survey that will be used to evaluate research on youth entrepreneurship to understand how best to serve the next generation of business leaders and develop future programming tailored to their needs, Monroy said.

The event also aims to raise the confidence level of the students to chase their dreams, and it gives them skills they can take with them wherever they go, said Kim Dehmel, youth entrepreneurship coordinator for GISD.

“Entrepreneurship is the wave of the future,” said Dehmel, who received the Next Gen Momentum Award at the event for her commitment to youth entrepreneurship. “I think we’re going to see less and less corporations, and we’re going to see more and more small businesses. It’s how we see economic growth. It’s how we see positive change. If we don’t offer programs like this, then we’re losing a lot of students in planning their future.”

Youth entrepreneurship awards

Highlights of the summit included: youth-focused entrepreneurship programming; a live, on-stage “social hackathon” competition before a panel of judges; one-on-one mentorship sessions between students and industry experts; presentations from business leaders; and a community roundtable policy discussion.

For the hackathon, students split into groups and competed for prizes by pitching products they could create and sell to help address three issues in Flint: youth employment opportunities, access to reliable transportation and community engagement. The students took turns on stage presenting an array of business products, including apps that bring neighborhoods together and provide employment opportunities for students ages 14 to 20.

“I saw at the event a lot of camaraderie between the students,” said Tari Jones, associate program officer for the Mott Foundation’s Flint Area team. “Everyone was on the same page. Everyone was encouraging one another. It was a phenomenal way to showcase Flint and to showcase how strong and robust our entrepreneurial ecosystem is. The kids were so brilliant. I was really impressed with the level of detail and thoughtfulness they put into their different ideas.”

The winning team took home a $700 prize and formed a Bus R Us app concept that provides free transportation to people who need it. The second-place team won $300 for its idea to create a podcast that aims to connect students to solve local issues.

The top two teams in the hackathon each won a Next Gen Rising Stars Award, which was created in honor of Chris Stallworth, a Mott Foundation program officer who died in May of 2021. Stallworth was a dedicated member of Mott’s Flint and Education program teams. He was essential in crafting the Foundation’s entrepreneurship programs for young people in Flint and across the country, Gambardella said.

“It brings me so much joy to know that Chris was part of the inception, he was the catalyst, he was the founding seed of this event, and he’s looking down on us smiling,” Gambardella said.

The summit is just the beginning of what’s in store for the future. Organizers plan to make it an annual event, expand it to include even more students and launch a youth fellowship cohort that will provide students with more individualized help in becoming entrepreneurs.

“The future is bright for these Genesee County youth entrepreneurs,” Gambardella said. “We look forward to continuing working with these promising young adults in a variety of ways so that they can realize their full potential. The sky is the limit for these students.”

Genesee County high school students and their parents wanting more information about getting involved in youth entrepreneurship programs can contact GISD Youth Entrepreneurship Coordinator Kim Dehmel at 810-591-4561 or kdehmel@geneseeisd.org.