Capacity Strengthening
The Department of Human Development, Education and Culture started to offer Educational Opportunities Workshops to prepare students contemplating graduate studies in the region. Students received a 3 module workshop on how to build the necessary skills to be productive in the 21st Century workforce, how to internationalize their academic and professional careers and how to search for and finance international education opportunities abroad. A total of 964 undergraduate and graduate students and university faculty participated in the workshop on how to access educational opportunities in the Americas. There were 738 workshop participants in Panama and 226 in Suriname.

The Educational Portal of the Americas
Since 2012, the Portal joined efforts with FLACSO Chile to offer a postgraduate course “Diplomado en Gerencia Social y Políticas de Juventud”. Through the Virtual Classroom, participants from the public sector and civil society organizations learn how to incorporate the youth perspective to their work in the field of social management. More than 50 participants were trained.

Also, the Portal is supporting Department of Social Development and Employment in the development a virtual Certificate in Social Protection in Spanish and English. The English version will be launched in September 2013 and the Spanish version in February 2014.

Information available in spanish

Initiative:
Youth Innovation - Youth Entrepreneurship

Description:
Component of the UNDP program Youth In implemented by YABT to support entrepreneurship development among youth in the CARICOM Member and Associate States. It involves:
1 - Coordination among stakeholders
2 - Public Private Sector Partnerships
3 - Ecosystem for Young Entrepreneurs

It has five components:
1 - Young Entrepreneurs Start Up Spaces (YESS)
2- Business Labs - Capacity Building training in entrepreneurship for young people and experts
3- Technology
4- Caribbean Innovation Challenge
5 - Access to Finance

The Caribbean Innovation Challenge (CIC) is a paralell process to the TIC Americas and will only focus in the Caribbean Youth.

Activities:
Mini Business Labs ( for young people in general)
Business Labs Workshop ( for Young Entrepreneurs)
Nex Links Worlkshops ( for local Experts)
Caribbean Innovation Challenge (CIC) ( for youth age 13 - 29)

Beneficiaries:
Young people age 13- 29 years old
Local Organizations that work in entrepreneurship in the Caribbean
Young entrepreneurs in the following economic areas:
Agriculture, Environment (green businesses), Tourism, and Cultural Enterprises

Partnerships:
United Nations Development Program
Young Americas Business Trust
Israel Cooperation Agency - MASHAV
Mount Carmel International Training Center - MCTC
Ministries of Youth
Organization of American States

Initiative:
Talent and Innovation Challenges of the Americas (TIC Americas)

Description:
TIC Americas is a program that honors innovative businesses and accelerates the process of market integration of young entrepreneurs in the Americas. TIC Americas model goes beyond developing a business plan as it incorporates extensive support phases with training, mentoring and development of prototype.

The objective of the TIC Americas is to combat poverty by empowering young entrepreneurs with the skills and resources they need to consolidate their business at the start up phase. The competition is based in two major categories, the talent and innovation and the Eco Challenge awards.

In summary:
6 Editions: (Panama 2007, Colombia 2008, Honduras 2009, Peru 2010 and El Salvador 2011 and Colombia 2012)
• 72 countries represented.
• 20,705 young participants
• 6,770 business proposals
• 93% of participants finish the program with an established company
• More than 500 professionals from across the continent have been involved as judges and mentors.
• More than 100 hours of virtual conferences to train participants.
• More than 200 universities, colleges and incubators have been linked to the process.
• 91.3% of participants stated that TIC Americas motivated them to start a new project or a business venture.

Activities:
Registration: August 21, 2012 - January 18, 2013
Follow up with Participants registered: January 19 - February 14, 2013
Final Submission of Deliverables: February 15, 2013
On-line Evaluation by Judges: All March 2013
Announcement of Finalists: April 12, 2013
Finals: May 30 and 31, 2013 - La Antigua, Guatemala

Partnerships:
Young people from the OAS Member States that are between 13 to 35 years old.
Among them we can also include:
Young Indigenous
Women Entrepreneurs
Young people at risk
Local organizations that work with young people

Partnerships:
Organization of American States
Young Americas Business Trust
Pepsico Latin America

In 2010 – 2011, the OAS and the Trust for the Americas continued to implement the project “Armando Paz: Building a culture of peace with youth in Central America through media, arts and social dialogue” in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama. Project activities included five capacity building workshops that reached 120 civil society organizations and representatives from governmental institutions working with youth, four national forums promoting dialogue among youth, private sector representatives and government and the launch of the sub-grant competition “Peace challenge”. The competitions goal was to encourage young people from El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama to submit project proposals to address creatively the problems that are identified as causal factors of violence and insecurity in their communities. The contest ended on April 15, 2011 with the submission of 97 project proposals, 72% of which were submitted by young people between 18 and 26 years old.