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President Obama Honors Extraordinary Young Entrepreneurs at the White House

November 19, 2014 at 10:12 AM ET by Dan Correa
Summary: 
Yesterday, President Obama marked National Entrepreneurs’ Day by congratulating three student winners of the National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in the Oval Office. The Challenge, which is supported by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, focuses on teaching entrepreneurship skills to high school students and has worked with more than 500,000 young people from low-income communities across the United States and around the world.

Young Entrepreneurs 2014

President Barack Obama greets the winners of the 2014 National Youth Network Entrepreneurship Challenge, in the Oval Office of the White House, Nov. 18, 2014. The President greets from left: runner up Jesse Horine, 19, from Fort Mill, S.C.; first place winner Lily DeBell, 13, from Baltimore, Md., and Runner up Ambar Romero, 16, from Bridgeport, Conn. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Yesterday at the White House, President Obama marked National Entrepreneurs’ Day by congratulating three student winners of the National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in the Oval Office. The Challenge, which is supported by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, focuses on teaching entrepreneurship skills to high school students and has worked with more than 500,000 young people from low-income communities across the United States and around the world. 

This year, more than 50 semifinalists chosen from a field of over 20,000 traveled to Silicon Valley to meet with top business leaders and compete for a grand prize worth $25,000. In keeping with the President’s challenge to young people to “create and build and invent—to be makers of things, not just consumers of things,” today he recognized the following student Challenge winners:

  • First place winner Lily DeBell, 13, from Baltimore, MD. Lily is the CEO of Lily’s Legwarmers, focused on providing all-natural, hand-made, customizable dancewear for young dancers.
  • Runner up Ambar Romero, 16, from Bridgeport, CT.  Ambar’s business, Styles by Ambar, is an online consignment shop that collects and re-sells quality vintage clothing to benefit community organizations. 
  • Runner up Jesse Horine, 19, from Fort Mill, SC.  Jesse founded SouthernFly, a company that manufactures fishing flies and apparel. 

These students’ exciting efforts offer a glimpse of the entrepreneurial potential of America’s next generation. And because every startup is an experiment with a chance to help change the world, the Administration is committed to lowering the cost of tinkering, experimenting, and starting up something new to ensure we are continually generateing new innovations that can improve our quality of life.

That is why in 2011 the President launched Startup America, to celebrate, inspire, and accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship nationwide, and that is also why, in 2012, he signed the bipartisan Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, making it easier for qualifying small firms to go public, and opening up new avenues for crowdfunding of promising business ideas. And this past June, the President hosted the first ever White House Maker Faire, showcasing a movement that democratizes the tools and skills necessary to design and make just about anything.

Please join us in congratulating these young entrepreneurs!


Dan Correa is a Senior Advisor for Innovation Policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy