Inspiring and nurturing entrepreneurs is vital to economic growth and innovation. But while many have ideas and ambition, they lack the business and technology skills for success. HP is focusing our efforts on filling that gap with training programs that target young people, aspiring entrepreneurs, and small business owners.

Supporting the success of entrepreneurs is important to our business, but it's also core to who we are. HP was founded in a garage by two men with a vision more than 70 years ago, and their entrepreneurial spirit continues to drive us today.

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Our two-pronged strategy emphasizes the importance of technology and relies on collaboration with other leading organizations. As we provide training to develop the information technology (IT) and business skills of entrepreneurs of all ages, we're also reaching young people to seed the next generation of business leaders and innovators.

Building IT and business skills for entrepreneurs of all ages

There are many business training programs for entrepreneurs, and also many programs that train on the use of IT. HP has a unique program that combines both to enhance IT as a tool for business growth.

HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs (HP LIFE) is a global program for training students, aspiring entrepreneurs, and small business owners to harness the power of IT to establish and grow their business, helping them build successful companies and create jobs. HP LIFE builds on a long tradition of HP assistance for entrepreneurship support activity.

Supporting young people to build entrepreneurship skills

Getting young people excited about entrepreneurship is key to building the businesses of the future and increasing economic growth in any society. Skilled young entrepreneurs will be the solution-providers and job creators of the 21st century. Expanding the number of young people reached through technology is vital to this effort.

HP is a longtime partner of JA Worldwide (Junior Achievement) and works closely with them to help build entrepreneurship and business skills among young people in new ways. Junior Achievement's traditional efforts involve pairing businesspeople with students in public schools to enhance student interest in business and entrepreneurship, along with competitive business plan competitions. HP supports Junior Achievement to develop these programs online and thus expand the number of student participants worldwide.

HP is directly supporting innovative activities at the country level that enhance Junior Achievement's effort to reach students online and enhance their learning.

HP is also supporting a new Social Innovation Relay across six continents which encourages students to come up with business solutions to social challenges, to which HP will donate product giveaways.

HP is also helping Junior Achievement to develop new activities using technology that will reach more students worldwide. In addition, HP is linking its influential business training program, HP LIFE, to Junior Achievement learners. HP will continue to link its employees to students via online mentoring in order to better support student participants in Junior Achievement programs. Finally, HP is linking Junior Achievement to the U.S. based National Lab Network program to enhance STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs.

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