About yCITIES
Creating Impact Through Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Sustainability
Our Mission
We create impact through innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainability — cultivating leaders who shape a better world.
For nearly two decades, we've been at the forefront of youth entrepreneurship, long before introductory programs were widely available. As the field expanded, our perspective deepened.
Working with first-time founders as young as middle schoolers — and drawing on direct experience in early-stage investing — we identified a persistent gap: the shared understanding of risk that connects founders and funders. Progress depends not only on better-prepared founders, but on funders equipped to evaluate those problems with nuance.
That intersection — educator, ecosystem builder, active investor — defines our work today.
The Gap No One Talks About
Across founders, investors, students, and institutions, the biggest hidden barrier in entrepreneurship isn't motivation or ideas. It's the ability to interpret risk, ambiguity, and incomplete information.
Founders must articulate why a problem is worth solving and what evidence reduces uncertainty. Funders must interpret risk and deploy capital with confidence. Too often, neither group is taught how — and without both, nothing meaningful happens after Demo Day.
We make that invisible skill visible, teachable, and transferable.
How It Works
Through tiered programs and real-world engagements, we build a shared language of judgment across founders, investors, students, and institutions. Participants develop decision-making skills, apply them through direct experience, and return to the ecosystem as mentors and leaders — ensuring knowledge and opportunity flow forward across generations and communities.