Mariotti (right) with BESA winners
Steve Mariotti, Kaizen interviewee and founder of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), wrote about his experiences with young entrepreneurs at the Bright China Entrepreneurial Spirit Award (BESA) ceremony. “…These young people would most likely end up as low-income workers in factories. Through the NFTE/Bright China program, they were inspired to start their own businesses,” Mariotti said.
In an article for Huffington Post, Rieva Lesonsky credits Generation Y, which she dubs “Generation Entrepreneur,” for a major role in the entrepreneurial comeback of the 2010s. She cites Gen Y Capital Partners among organizations seeking to correct the difficulty Generation Y entrepreneurs often have in finding capital. The company donates $10 million to Generation Y startups, and gives some of its proceeds to Kaizen interviewee Steve Mariotti‘s Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.
Steve Mariotti, Founder of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship and Kaizen interviewee, gives his suggestions for budding entrepreneurs in “24 Concepts Every Young Person Should Know About Business” (Huffington Post).
In “Teaching Capitalism in the Last Days of the USSR,” Steve Mariotti discusses his experience teaching capitalism and business to students in the final days of the USSR as it was changing to Russia.
Mariotti is a Kaizen interviewee and the founder of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). Before NFTE, Mariotti was a successful entrepreneur and a teacher in some of New York’s most challenging schools. Because of his innovative methods for teaching business concepts, Mariotti was named Teacher of the Year for New York State in 1988.
Mary Mazzio is an award-winning independent filmmaker, Olympic rower, and former law firm partner with Brown Rudnick. She received her undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College, a law degree from Georgetown University, and studied film production at Boston University. Her company, 50 Eggs, LLC, has produced five independent films shown across the United States on television, in classrooms, and in theatres. We met with Ms. Mazzio outside of Boston, Massachusetts, to explore her thoughts on entrepreneurship and the challenges and excitement of making documentaries.
Kaizen: You’ve been a lawyer, an Olympic rower, and now a documentary filmmaker. When you were young, did you have any idea your adult life would be so varied?
Mazzio: Not at all. Although as a kid I remember always having a sort of boundless enthusiasm for whatever it was that I was doing. So I always thought that good things would happen in the end but I had no idea.
An article in New York Daily News covers the increasing demand for the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship’s (NFTE) courses in our faltering economy. NFTE was founded by Kaizen interviewee Steve Mariotti, who states, “Kids are aware of how fragile a job is and they begin to think about how they could create a job if they had to.” The article also profiles several young graduates of the program who have become entrepreneurial success stories.
Shown above, NFTE graduate Steve Gordon, 18-year-old founder of TatooID.
The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) recently won a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Association of Educational Publishers for NFTE’s mathematics curriculum “Entrepreneurship: Owning Your Future”. From the announcement: “Written by NFTE Founder Steve Mariotti, the curriculum teaches fundamentals of mathematics as well as comprehensive guide to developing a business plan. It focuses on critical basic business skills including business communications, negotiating, business ethics, social responsibility, time management, and goal setting.” We interviewed Mr. Mariotti for the August 2009 issue of Kaizen (PDF). Read the full-length interview here.
From the press release: “Don’t miss this compelling documentary from award-winning filmmaker Mary Mazzio, which chronicles the inspirational stories of several teens from low-income communities as they compete in the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship’s [founded by Kaizen interviewee Steve Mariotti] national business plan competition. What they learn along the way profoundly changes their lives and destinies.”
The film will be shown this Sunday, February 7 at 11 am Central.
Thomas L. Friedman writes in a recent New York Times article that President Obama should be focusing on inspiring America’s youth to become entrepreneurial rather than playing the blame game with bankers. By contrast, Friedman praises Kaizen interviewee Steve Mariotti’s NFTE as an example of an organization doing excellent work with young entrepreneurs.
TEN9EIGHT, an inspiring documentary that follows several young entrepreneurs (a few are graduates of Kaizen interviewee Steve Mariotti’s NFTE program), opens in several major U.S. cities this Friday, November 13th.
Quoted from the New York Times article about the film: “I hope millions of kids see it,” said Steve Mariotti. For some youngster out there, he said. “it will be life-changing.”
See the TEN9EIGHT website for more information, including clips and showtimes. Watch the trailer below.
