JCI World Congress Rio 2013

The Future of the JCI Creative Young Entrepreneur Award Program

The JCI Creative Young Entrepreneur Award recognizes outstanding, innovative young people for their creativity in product or service development within the business world. Since 2006, Junior Chamber International (JCI) and Flanders District of Creativity (Flanders DC) have partnered on the JCI Creative Young Entrepreneur Award Program (JCI CYEA) sharing an interest in promoting creative thinking of young, global citizens. 

At the end of the 2012 JCI CYEA program, the partnership between the two organizations expired, giving the organizations the opportunity to evaluate the impact of the program and partnership.

In response to the 2008 JCI Strategic Plan, JCI has worked to bring the focus of the organization to the grassroots level, emphasizing the local communities that our members serve. In alignment with the Strategic Plan, the purpose of JCI CYEA is being slightly redefined. JCI CYEA will continue to recognize the world’s most creative young entrepreneurs, promoting and supporting business creativity and new enterprise development, but the focus will lie in local communities worldwide. JCI and Flanders DC agree that moving forward, an international level of competition for JCI CYEA will not be held. 

Due to the tremendous positive impact creative entrepreneurship has on local economies along with the continued interest in running JCI CYEA, JCI members are encouraged to use the newly updated and adapted tools to continue running local and national level competitions. Recognizing creative young entrepreneurs in their cities and nations encourages others to follow their example of creating positive change through local business ventures.