Youth Venture

Hi everyone! I got involved with YV after seeing a commercial on MTV and their think! ventures. After working closely with the YV leaders in New York in developing a solid plan of action, I launched Bridge Education in August 2006 to help disadvantaged students with SAT prep/college admissions. I was inspired to this mainly from watching my sister, a former Teach for America corps member and current charter school teacher, who worked with troubled middle school children in Philadelphia. Hearing their struggles and working with them during my class visits demonstrated the vast gap in opportunities available to students from varying socioeconomic backgrounds. The most absurd thing is that this cycle of denied resources and unrealized potential will continue to perpetuate itself without some intervention. So I founded Bridge and during the 2006-2007 school year I worked with several fellow National Merit Scholars and very insightful school faculty members to offer personal tutoring sessions and group reviews. I am heading to Harvard in Fall 2007 to study economics and government, so I have handed the torch off to Faiz Jiwani (soon to be on this site) to continue the program, after training several members of the class of 2008. My experiences with Bridge also assisted me in developing a commercial business, INeedAPencil.com. We provide online SAT prep to students; I am working to launch our philanthropic efforts in an initiative to make SAT prep free to students globally that meet certain financial need criteria. I look forward to networking with you all, sharing experiences and growing from these opportunities. You all are amazing individuals and I am thrilled to be here!

• I want to help out a venture
• I launched a venture in the last 12 months and could use help
• I have started a venture and want to share insights
• I want to reach out to YV alumni
• -Expand Bridge Education -Expand the philanthropic efforts of INeedAPencil.com -Network with fellow entrepreneurs and YV members