The Business Plan Competition was originally inspired by an Art & Design High School entrepreneurial contest hosted by JA New York Board Company KPMG.
In 2008 Junior Achievement of New York and G. Chris Andersen, JA Alum & Board Member, co-founded the city-wide JA New York Business Plan Competition. Mr. Andersen saw an opportunity to expand upon KPMG's model by formalizing and creating an entrepreneurship incubator program for high school students and the JA New York Business Competition was born.
Two years and nearly 1,000 students later, the JA New York Business Plan Competition attracted NASDAQ OMX, which saw an opportunity to invest in an educationally enriching, high-impact program that had captured the enthusiasm of NYC and Long Island students within a very short period of time. In 2009, The NASDAQ OMX Educational Foundation made a $1 million grant commitment to JA New York to fund the growth and reach of the Business Plan Competition over a 5-year period in NYC & Long Island.
With the generous support of our partners JA New York’s vision is to (a) inspire and seed NYC and Long Island students’ interest in entrepreneurism as a pathway to economic and social empowerment and (b) to encourage the use of entrepreneurial thinking to conceive and drive solutions to tackle business and social problems and (c) to reinvigorate the entrepreneurial spirit in a new generation to secure America’s place as ac global business innovator and technological and economic leader.
By successfully engaging students in entrepreneurial thinking and creativity within a business context, the JA New York Business Plan Competition is designed to make education more relevant and exciting to students by helping them to make connections between what they learn in school and practical applications of this knowledge in the real world.
JA New York is grateful for the support of G. C. Anderson Partners, LLC and pro-bono partners: Angel soft, AT&T, and Columbia Business School.
