Learn all about interest taught by khan academy http://www.khanacademy.org/#/video/introduction-to-interest?playlist=Finance

If you want to begin a micro loan bank, you will want to know at least some basic rules of finance. Learn from the best: khan academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/#/video/introduction-to-interest?playlist=Finance

Why should businesses worry about future generations?

When we think of business we usually think of product, innovation, profits, bottom-line. We think of customers, owners and workers and how each needs to benefit from the transaction. So where do future generations fit in to a business plan? If entrepreneurs don't consider the impact of their business plan on future generations, they may not have a business twenty years down the road. They may not have workers qualified to maintain the business if no one has invested in education. We are seeing this problem all over the U.S. right now. U.S. schools have not educated young people to meet the demands of the work place. Some believe it's because schools don't teach what kids will need to know as adults. Some believe it's because k-12 education and early childcare is under-funded, and teachers are too often under qualified or under paid for their critical jobs as role models and leaders for young people. What's your take on this crisis? Have too many businesses run away with profits, some of which should have been invested in education? If we don't invest in people, then what (if not who) are we creating value for?

Beyond the Bake sale: Links for Student Leaders Building and Investing in a Micro Loan Bank

Bake sales are great for raising $50 here and there. We use them at my school to raise money for humanitarian relief and school carnivals. This year the Student Council and Green Council of my middle school will put some of the hard-earned cookie capital into building a Micro Loan Bank. 7 Fridays this year, student leaders will encourage the student body to donate lunch money to our first micro loan bank, which will help to finance entrepreneurs in places like Rwanda and New Orleans. We will raise capital from green projects too like our Annual Electronic Waste Drive. Check out these links to learn more about Micro Loans, and Poverty and International Development:

One hen: this site geared to grades 4-8 was inspired by a real boy, Kenyabena Dark from Ghana. He was given chicks as a boy that inspired him to become the largest poultry producer in his country. His story and those of many others on this site explain how micro loans work.

Kiva facilitates micro loans. It connects mico-loaning communities with individuals in the international community and in the U.S. who seek loans.

Microplace also connects micro-entrepreneurs like Kiva. From this site, you can make no-fee investments that benefit both you and the poor because you can earn interest and get repaid from micro-loaning to individuals.

World Savvy is a large site with resources for Global Studies projects. This page is loaded with info and links about Poverty and International Development.

Anna renames Beat Jacks: Coola Biz Schoola

Beat Jacks isn't cutting it. Let's face it, the name conjures competition but also something more violent. So my eleven year old niece Anna thinks I should rebrand it Coola Biz Schoola. Can you think of a better brand for a Teen Entrepreneurship Web site? I challenge you. If it's good, the name will stick. Design the logo, mascot, T-shirt, bumper sticker, avatar. Catchy pitch for an app wouldn't be bad either. THANKS!

Time for Play Should be a Human Right: Free2Play

Free2Play from Not For Sale Campaign on Vimeo.

Free2Work Makes Buying Responsibly Easier

Check out Free2Work, an app that allows you to see if the products you buy or the companies you invest in are linked to labor abuses.

"Free2Work is a strategic tool to increase transparency in supply chains, empower consumers to make informed decisions, as well as mediate communications between consumers and companies."

Challenge: Use the Free2Work app for a few weeks and then tell a friend the story behind the products you bought. Is your new shirt the product of child labor? Is your chocolate sourced from West African cocoa fields where workers live in poverty and child labor is common? Why should it matter? Does it?

As an entrepreneur, is it ever o.k. to create a company where you profit at the expense of your workers' future, health, sense of self-determination? Is it ever o.k. to create a company where future generations are compromised? Whose responsibility is it to monitor businesses and ensure they are socially responsible?
Entrepreneurship=COW-F Customers, Owners, Workers and Future Generations

Mini books publishing

My new "My Name" friend Susana writes teeny books for children in the native language of Rwanda, Kinyarwanda. The subject of the books are Rwandan people or the animals that live in the bush not far from where she lives. She has her illustrating team paint watercolor pictures to illustrate the books on tables right outside her office. Each book is about 6 pages long with beautiful illustrations for each page. Publishing long colorful picture books is expensive in Rwanda, so the publishers Penda Kusoma are betting short ones might make a bigger profit.

Challenge: Can you retell Susana's story in the illustration above? How much is said just in an image? Now innovate: What's missing in books these days? Are they too long, too short, too hard to store? Too expensive to publish? Are the stories interesting enough? Who do you want to reach and why? Did you know that you make change happen through stories? Write and design your own mini book with friends. Be sure you have a writer, an illustrator, a publisher and an editor. Publish the mini books on your own website. Use social marketing to get the word out. Monetize.

Rag Ball Challenge

Can you make a better soccer ball from scratch than this banana leaf one from Rwanda, Africa? Obstructions: you can only use what you find as free cycle in your house or neighborhood. Bonus points for making it look like and feel like a soccer ball when you kick it. Now trying selling it for $5. If you can do that in a week, see if you can make 2 more in less time without sacrificing quality. Sell 2 for $7 or cut profit margins to sell more faster. Name your company. Make business cards. Keep track of customer satisfaction. Then ask your little brother or sister what they would do to make it better.
Check out and network with the kids making balls for Rag Ball International.

Could Acting Class Make you a Better Entrepreneur?

Could Acting class make you a better entrepreneur? Check out one of my favorite actors Jeffrey Wright on entrepreneurship. He ties it to a critical skill in acting: the suspension of disbelief. Note: Wright does social entrepreneurship work in Sierra Leone. What's that? A social entrepreneur solves social problems on a large scale. A social entrepreneur focuses on creating social capital usually to help solve a social or environmental problem.

Challenge: Dream a job for yourself that doesn't exist right now but will create value for many people. Suspend your own disbelief. If this job doesn't exist in your community, you'll have to dream it into existence. Write it down. Give it a name. Act it out. Tell your best friend about it. Look for role models doing something similar. Risk sharing your dream with people who could make it happen.

Super Challenge: Imagine you can leverage social capital among your friends to solve a social or environmental problem. What's the problem? How could you use social interactions to problem solve? How can you leverage the internet? How can you use storytelling or acting to solve world problems?

Beat Jacks - the origin

Around the age 12-14, (maybe even earlier) we can begin to spot inefficient or outdated methods in the lives of the adults around us. And we want to because it's fun to see and innovate off our parents' and neighbors' vulnerabilities. It's power. This blog is all about our innate drive to beat the system by seeing its loopholes and innovating. It's about challenges and ways to overcome them and become entrepreneurs.

My idea comes from an article in today's New York Times called "The Vending Machine Kid." The article reminded me of when I was sophomore in high school (14) and wanted to make my dad's job easier. (There I am in the photo with my dad. He was successful professor of medicine, doctor and the head of a small hospital for the terminally ill. He was also super disorganized with a mountain of old memos on his desk dating back years. Dirty spoons at the bottom of the 2 year pile...) To complete my computer science homework assignment, I asked him what if hospitals had desk top computers, how could they make hospitals run better and help more people? He said his hospital didn't really have a good system for tracking incoming patients, so I began designing one in C programming language. It was super easy programming by the way, and after I finished the code for my simple database program, my dad's hospital still didn't have anything to easily track in-coming patients. And there, little did I know, was a new opportunity waiting for an entrepreneur to help people.