GALESBURG — Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities is one of the newest programs Galesburg School District is using to connect high school graduates to stay and create professional networks. The program allows high school juniors and seniors to form their own business idea and push it toward reality. The course asks the students to go out into the city and make business connections with other members of the economic market.

The hope is to teach these students what it means to successfully run a business, through avenues of accounting and relationship building. At the end of the course, if a student’s idea is successful enough, the business will become fully realized and any money made from it is for the student’s profit.

Ken Springer, president of the Knox County Area Partnership for Economic Development, says it will build a strong base of business leaders for the future that will continue to prosper in the town they originated in. He explained that, within the cities that have already adopted the program, students engaged in it tend to stick around.

“We’re seeing this program go to rural communities and really succeed,” Springer said. “Our hope is to train the next generation of business leaders.”

The program is slated to begin in Knox County in fall 2018 with around 20 students.

Source: The Register-Mail