The students in the 2017-2018 Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) program will present their final business plans to a panel of local business leaders on Tuesday, April 3. This Investor Panel event will include presentations by the students in front of an audience. The event is free and open to the public and will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Northcentral Technical College’s Health Science Auditorium in Wausau.

During this exciting event, the YEA! students will pitch their plans for real, viable businesses to a panel of financial donors. The plans have been developed over the course of the last six months and the students intend to launch their businesses in the Wausau region later this year. Representatives from local companies will determine the amount of funds to allocate to each business based upon the appeal and viability of the students’ plans and presentations.

The participating judges will also select one business to advance to the YEA! Saunders Scholars National College Scholarship competition in May. This selected student will compete against others from across the nation for hundreds of thousands of dollars in college scholarships, a fast-track application pass to apply to be on ABC’s Shark Tank and an all-expenses paid trip to attend America’s Small Business Summit in Washington, DC courtesy of the United States Chamber of Commerce.

The Investor Panel will be comprised of local business people, including judges from Cellcom, Northcentral Technical College, the Entrepreneurial & Education Center and more. YEA! is sponsored annually at the platinum level by CGI and Cellcom and at the bronze level by AbbyBank and REI. Sun Printing Inc is the print and marketing sponsor.

The Wausau Region Chamber of Commerce partnered with the DC Everest Area School District in 2015 to offer the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) to students in the region. Presentations from previous Investor Panel events are available on the Chamber’s YouTube channel. 13 participants have been working to develop a dozen new businesses – real businesses they plan to run to help them achieve goals like funding college and becoming life-long entrepreneurs.

If you are interested in serving as a judge for the Investor Panel, becoming a general YEA! sponsor or would like to learn more about how to support the next generation of entrepreneurs, contact program manager Lukas Lindner at [email protected] or 715-848-6428 or class instructor Jim Dahlgren at [email protected] or 715-359-0511 ext. 3221.