Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship Bay Area

Founded in New York City in 1987 by Steve Mariotti, a former entrepreneur turned high school math teacher in the South Bronx, NFTE began as a program to prevent dropouts and improve academic performance among students who were at risk of failing or quitting school. Combining his business background with his desire to teach at-risk students, Steve found that through entrepreneurship, young people discover that what they are learning in the classroom is relevant to the real world.

By teaching the entrepreneurial mindset, NFTE provides young people with tools and attitudes to overcome adversity and address future personal, economic, community and global challenges.

NFTE has worked with more than 600,000 young people from low-income communities in programs across the U.S. and around the world and continues to expand - sharing and spreading the transformative power of entrepreneurship.

Here in the Bay Area, NFTE currently serves nearly 1,800 low income students in communities from San Francisco and Redwood City to San Jose, Hayward, San Leandro, and Oakland. We work with 30 high school teachers from 19 schools through programs such as: 

• Business Plan Competition: students develop an original business idea and compete in a competition series from the classroom level to Nationals. 

• Hackathon: a full-day app design challenge to inspire low-income students to pursue careers in technology.

• BizCamp: a 2 week intensive entrepreneurship summer camp for students with no previous exposure, culminating in a mini-business plan competition. 

• NFTE U: a week-long summer training program to certify teachers as entrepreneurship educators