What do you do with 75 mega-geniuses under 20 years old?
Guest post by Jared Kleinert.
What do you do when you have access to the world’s smartest and most talented people at or under 20 years old? You have them write their own inspirational life anecdotes and put them together in a book of course!!!
But WHY do you do this? That is the important part. The harsh reality is that there are 2 billion people in the world who are currently under 20, and out of those 2 billion who will shape the future and solve the world’s most pressing problems, only an extremely tiny percentage of them are acting wholeheartedly on their passions. Because of the financial struggles our parents have gone through, the constant turmoil in the world from the “war on terror” to continuous unrest in the Middle East, and the seemingly impossible drain of high tuition rates that make it impossible for teens to plan a life without a mountain of debt from higher education among other factors, our generation has more obstacles to a bright future than a lot of generations have had in the past. Yet, at the end of the day in a time where technology has made the speed of innovation incredibly fast for young people, we still have a few bright spots. This is why I wanted to empower and inspire the “2 Billion Under 20” to take action with their lives and go forward with their passions to improve their lives and society as a whole.
My name is Jared Kleinert and I am the co-author and co-founder of “2 Billion Under 20”. So far we have gathered 75 people from over 20 countries and all walks of life (from Olympians to social entrepreneurs, kids who have escaped genocide to singers that have opened for Elton John) to empower and inspire the next generation of global leaders and doers. We have begun meetups in major cities across the US, grown a community of hundreds of like minded, high caliber young people, and created this book which is set to begin pre-selling before the end of the year.
In the past, Devin has chronicled me as the “Definition of a Social Entrepreneur” in Forbes for my work on Synergist, my last startup that allowed social entrepreneurs to create, collaborate on, and share their social movements and enterprises. It is now my mission to empower and inspire young people to take the next steps in their lives, act on what interests them most, and make an impact despite their “inexperience” or youth.
In order to continue empowering young people, we are seeking sponsorship for the book. If you are interested, please check out the Sponsorship Overview and shoot me an email at jaredkleinert@gmail.com if you want to speak further.
As I have mentioned in previous speeches and talks that I regularly give about young people’s empowerment and social entrepreneurship, there is a reason you are reading this blog post right now. It is a culmination of life events that brings you to this very link and this moment in time. Perhaps you saw this post shared on Facebook or are a religious reader of all things associated with “Your Mark on the World”. Whatever it is, you are here and are hearing my message of empowering more young people in the world. You’ve been chosen to spread this virus, so whether it is through better education for your kids, mentoring young folks in your community, setting up programs for young entrepreneurship, or sponsoring the book so we can empower billions, by reading this you now have awareness of the magnitude of this necessity and are responsible to help spread the importance of young people’s empowerment.
At 15, Jared started NowIGetIt.com, an edtech startup that gave students access to tutors across the globe via webchat for affordable prices. At 16, he founded another company called Synergist, a crowdsourcing site for social entrepreneurs to create, collaborate, and share ideas for social movements and enterprises, earning him the title of the “Definition of a Social Entrepreneur” by Forbes. Jared has also worked at two high growth startups, helping to create a product called Learnist that raised $20 million and was used by over 1 million people in its first year, and helping CEOs keep a pulse on their companies at another start-up called 15Five. Jared initiated the idea for 2 Billion Under 20 after hearing an inspirational speech at the 2012 Under 20 Summit in New York last November.
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