Formation 2002 Membership 11,000 Founder & CEO Curtis L. DeBerg Founded 2002 Type of business NGO | Region served 21 Countries Worldwide Official language English Website [1] Purpose Social enterprise | |
Headquarters Roseville, California, United States Similar Network For Teaching, Enactus, D'Youville College | ||
Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship, or SAGE, is a global, non-profit organization that connects secondary school student organizations to mentors from local universities and businesses. Its mission is to advance youth entrepreneurship and community service around the world, emphasizing ethical business practices, social responsibility, civic engagement and environmental awareness.
Overview
SAGE Global's Vision: "A global community of teenage entrepreneurs sharing a common purpose: to make the world a better place."
SAGE Global creates better futures through business entrepreneurship, social enterprise and community service. Teenagers (including middle and secondary school students) use their school learning to become self-reliant, create wealth, and help others. These SAGE students are linked with college mentors and business advisory board members to provide guidance and/or experience in the completion of business and social ventures to improve their communities.
Each year regional and national competitions are held around the world for these students to showcase their efforts by presenting their business activities to business, civic, and academic community. It is a free, non-membership service organization available to all advocates of education in private and social entrepreneurship. SAGE Global is currently active on 5 continents in 21 countries, and reaches thousands of students who aren't talking about changing the world, they're doing it!
Founded in 2002 by business professor Curtis L. DeBerg from California State University, Chico, SAGE is an international network dedicated to creating the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders whose innovations and social enterprises address our world’s major unmet needs. SAGE is pioneering the field of youth entrepreneurship. There are two competition categories: socially-responsible businesses (SRB), which emphasize profit, and social enterprise businesses (SEB), which emphasize social value.
The first SAGE World Cup was held in May 2003 with teams from Poland, Mexico, Tajikistan and the United States; the program has now grown to include six U.S. states and 21 more countries. Each country conducts a national competition. The top two teams in each of the two categories—the SRB and the SEB categories—are invited to participate in an international tournament. This is called the SAGE World Cup (on August 7–10, 2015, this will be take place in Seoul, South Korea). The rules and format of each tournament are identical.
There are more than 11,000 high school students participating in SAGE programs at about 1,100 schools around the world.
SAGE connects teens with higher education and the business community in a powerful public/private partnership.
In spring 2012, SAGE began offering a one-semester, 12-lesson entrepreneurship course for teens, entitled “Turning Risk into Success” (available for licensing by schools).
To participate in SAGE, a “team” of teenagers from a high school or community organization is organized. If a high school has “small learning communities” or other internal divisions, then it is permissible to have one team per division. Moreover, if students from more than one high school wish to come together as one team, that is also permissible.
A SAGE team must operate either an SRB or an SEB (it cannot enter both competitions). “Veteran” SAGE teams may re-enter its business for a period of two years beyond its first year of competition.
In addition to completing its entrepreneurship ventures, students are judged on how well they integrated the following concepts into their activities: environmental stewardship and civic engagement.
Because students operate their businesses during the year in anticipation of presenting the results orally and in writing at the end of the year, they have a motivation other than grades.