For Youth

TEC Leaders About Business (TEC-LAB)

Since 1997, TEC-LAB has provided innovative and award-winning programs that give youth a forum to explore entrepreneurship, develop leadership skills, and serve their communities as they create viable career options for the future.

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TEC-LAB Programs:

  • Youth + Entrepreneurship = Success (YES) In-School Program—YES enables students from across Philadelphia to realize their dreams of developing a business while fostering their skills to succeed in school, business and community life.
  • Summer Business and Leadership Camps—Summer TEC-LAB is an intensive five-day business and entrepreneurship training program targeting rising 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students from low-income communities throughout Philadelphia. The program hosts more than 100 students and connects them with professional business owners and community leaders who mentor the students and foster their development as entrepreneurs and leaders. Since its inception in the summer of 1997, the program has provided thousands of youth with their first exposure to business mentors, technology training and a professional environment.
  • Executive Incubator (EI) After School Program—In the EI program, students with a business plan receive start-up capital, technical assistance, and other resources they need in order to implement their business plans. The program takes place over two years and is designed to foster participants’ entrepreneurship through the realization of their business plans.
  • Leaders 4 Success (L4S)—L4S is a teen council empowering youth to influence their communities through goal setting, mentorship and participation in community service activities. L4S teaches teens that you don’t have to be an adult to be a leader. The council meets twice a month at The Enterprise Center. And, under the umbrella of the Leaders Club, L4S students meet two Saturdays a month at the West Branch of the Y to discuss issues that teens face in their daily lives.
  • Food, School, and Community—In addition, The Enterprise Center introduces youth to local food access issues and helps them get involved in the fresh food economy. Through the Philadelphia Urban Food and Fitness Alliance (PUFFA), a program funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, high school students from West Philadelphia can become leaders of the local food movement, with activities such as a monthly youth-run dinner and a campaign for more quality food in Philadelphia’s school cafeterias and communities.

For more information about our youth programs, please contact Malyka Sankofa at malykas (at) theenterprisecenter (dot) com or (215) 895-4071.