Sponsoring Opportunity Where It Is Needed Most

At the Academy of Entrepreneurs, we believe entrepreneurship education should be accessible to all young people — not only those who already have resources and opportunities.

Recently, the Academy sponsored and delivered a four-week BossYourFuture entrepreneurship program in Banilad, Cebu, specifically designed for 25 young girls from underserved and street-based communities.

The program was taught by members of our team, including Josef and Faisal, and aimed to give these young women something many of them had never been offered before: the chance to see themselves as entrepreneurs and future business owners.

Over four weeks, the students participated in hands-on sessions where they learned how to:

• Discover their strengths and passions

• Identify business opportunities around them

• Turn everyday skills into income-generating ideas

• Design simple businesses they could realistically start

• Build confidence, leadership, and entrepreneurial thinking

For many of these girls, this was the first time anyone had asked them to imagine building their own economic future.

From Hobby to Business

One of the most inspiring outcomes of the program came from a student who shared a simple but powerful message:

“Hi Ms. Paula, I have loved baking since I was in elementary school, and it has always been my hobby. I usually bake crinkles at home, and now I decided to start selling them for at least 5 pesos per piece.”

What started as a hobby — baking chocolate crinkles at home — quickly became the foundation of her first entrepreneurial idea.

Instead of seeing baking as just something she enjoyed doing, she began to see it as a product she could sell and a business she could build.

With a price of 5 pesos per cookie, she took the most important step in entrepreneurship:

She started.

Creating a Purpose-Driven Business

As part of the program, students are encouraged to build businesses that not only generate income but also create positive social impact.

From this exercise, the student developed the concept of Rise & Share Bakery, a small community-focused bakery built on three key ideas:

• Fresh, homemade baked goods

• Sustainable ingredients and eco-friendly packaging

• Creating opportunities for others in the community

Her vision goes beyond selling cookies. She hopes that one day her bakery can create opportunities for other community members to learn baking and earn income, demonstrating that business can also serve a social purpose.

Learning Entrepreneurship Through Action

The BossYourFuture program is designed around a simple philosophy:

Entrepreneurship cannot be learned through theory alone — it must be experienced.

Instead of traditional classroom lectures, students engage in practical exercises that help them transform hobbies, interests, and everyday skills into real business ideas.

Through this approach, students gain confidence and begin to understand that:

• Businesses can start small

• Ideas can come from everyday life

• Income can be generated through creativity and initiative

• Entrepreneurship can be a pathway to independence

For this young entrepreneur in Cebu, a simple batch of homemade cookies became the starting point of a socially minded bakery concept.

Education That Creates Pathways

Following the program, many of the participating students have continued their learning journey and are now studying hospitality at an Opus Dei charity college in Cebu, where they are developing practical skills that can lead to employment or entrepreneurship.

This is exactly the type of pathway the Academy of Entrepreneurs aims to create, combining education, entrepreneurship, and opportunity so that young people can build sustainable futures for themselves and their communities.

The First of Many Success Stories

Entrepreneurship rarely begins with large investments or complex business plans.

More often, it begins with something much simpler:

• A passion

• A skill

• A small idea

• The courage to start
  

For one young baker in Banilad, Cebu, that first step began with selling 5-peso crinkle cookies.

And sometimes, the smallest ideas are the ones that rise the highest.

The Academy of Entrepreneurs remains committed to expanding access to entrepreneurship education around the world, empowering young people to become job creators, changemakers, and leaders in their communities.