Venture for America, the entrepreneurial version of Teach for America, plans to launch out of Detroit this summer, bringing some of the nation's top college graduates to the Motor City to work on local start-ups.
"If more of our talented young people aspired to be job creators in places like Detroit our country would be in much better shape," says Andrew Yang, founder & president of New York City-based
Venture for America.
Yang served as the president of
Manhattan GMAT, a service that helps students get into business schools of their choice, until it was acquired 18 months ago. The Brown graduate is basing Venture for America on the model of
Teach for America (the No. 1 employer of recent college graduates) of recruiting top college graduates to teach for a few years in some of the most challenged school districts in the U.S.
Venture for America plans to do the same thing, except point those types of college graduates toward start-ups based in some of the most challenged economies in the country. The first two will be Detroit and Providence, Rhode Island, with 20 of the program's first 30 members heading to Metro Detroit. Those 20 somethings will find start-ups through local business development accelerators, like
Bizdom U, starting in July.
Source: Andrew Yang, founder & president of Venture for America
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at
SEMichiganStartup.com.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.