Empowering Tomorrow's Leaders
AYA provides transformative entrepreneurship, financial literacy, leadership, and mentorship programs designed to empower teens, including foster teens and students from historically underserved communities, to discover their potential and build brighter futures.
Our programs include:
- Innovation Hub Powered by ASU
- Spring Break Innovation Camp
- Future Innovators Mentor Program
- Innovator’s Circle Teen Events
Each year, AYA has the privilege of positively impacting hundreds of teens and foster youth across Arizona. Our mission is to help break the cycle of poverty by equipping students with the confidence, skills, mentorship, and opportunities needed to succeed in school, careers, entrepreneurship, and life.
Today, 86% of the teens we serve are Title 1 students, with many living at or below the poverty line or coming from foster care, group homes, or other underserved backgrounds. Through hands-on experiences, mentorship, entrepreneurship education, and leadership development, AYA creates opportunities many students would not otherwise have access to.
Whether our programs take place in schools, community centers, libraries, camps, or alongside nonprofit and university partners, every experience is designed to help teens grow as leaders, innovators, and changemakers. Our curriculum is developed in collaboration with Arizona State University and community professionals with expertise in entrepreneurship, financial literacy, leadership, innovation, and personal development.
At AYA, we believe every teen deserves the opportunity to rise above their circumstances, dream bigger, and realize their full potential. We are committed to helping the next generation of leaders build confidence, create opportunities, and shape a brighter future for themselves and their communities.
Welcome to AYA
At AYA, we believe in the power of collaboration to empower teens throughout Arizona. Through strategic partnerships with schools, foster care organizations, youth-serving nonprofits, educators, business leaders, and Arizona State University, we provide innovative educational experiences that inspire leadership, entrepreneurship, and economic empowerment.
Making a Difference
Every year, AYA programming impacts hundreds of teens across our communities through entrepreneurship education, mentorship, leadership development, innovation experiences, and financial literacy programming. Join us as we empower the next generation of leaders, entrepreneurs, and changemakers.
A letter from our president
More than half of Arizona children (51%) live-in low-income families and nearly half (48%) of their parents do not have full time employment. Our mission is to end the cycle of poverty for Arizona families by cultivating the entrepreneurial spirit in Arizona youth. By promoting an entrepreneurial mindset, leadership training and strong community connections and mentorship, our students have a far greater opportunity for success. In turn, their children and families will be better positioned to not only be successful but help others in their community to achieve similar levels of success.
We offer a robust series of educational and growth experiences to match every student’s level of interest and ability. Our curriculum has been carefully curated through partnerships with organizations with great expertise in for-profit entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, leadership and personal growth. Our goal is not to grow student businesses, but to grow students themselves by meeting them where they are at and offering a variety of programs and experiences through an entrepreneurial and personal leadership lens. We believe that entrepreneurship is not a skill, but a mindset. One that requires creativity, collaboration, personal responsibility, and innovation. We teach that anyone can learn how to start a business but bringing out the qualities of entrepreneurship increases capacity to create solutions, build relationships, increase creativity and persistence towards meaningful goals, whether you are a student, business owner, musician, coder, doctor, social worker or anything else!
Students who attend Aspiring Youth Academy programs, learn skills ranging from business solution ideation to planning to critical thinking to peer leadership and collaborative teamwork, all while maintaining a focus on giving back to their community. Just as important, students discover their own personal strengths to bring greater confidence in all areas of life. Our social entrepreneurship Spring Break Camp links students to the world through solving global and humanitarian issues through business; Making the world a better place is at the core of all of our programs.
While our greater goal is to help end poverty for Arizona families, it’s important to note that our students do not come exclusively from low-income households. We strive for socioeconomic, racial and gender balance in our programs. We believe that our students will learn as much from each other as they do from us. Having experience in working together and solving problems with people who are unlike themselves will help setup any student for long term success.
Please take a moment to explore the rest of our site and find a way to get involved. Our aspirations are big, and our vision is bold. We need your help to achieve them.
JEFFREY BURG
President, Aspiring Youth Academy
JEFFREY BURG
President, Aspiring Youth Academy
