Circle of Resource Exchange (CORE) is a term coined by yCITIES to describe the accessibility of people, places, and things that can help you during the early stages of your entrepreneurial journey. Identifying and leveraging well-deployed resources can take one quite far in the very early stages of prototyping/piloting and de-risking so that funding is easier to obtain later.
CORE Members are central to the yCITIES ecosystem and permeate throughout all of our programs. CORE brings access to the skills, knowledge, or network that you may not have, or expands upon the resources you already have.
What does CORE mean?
Think of CORE as an asynchronous skill and knowledge swap — a variety of give and take via mentoring, ad hoc advice, crowdsourced quick-n-dirty prototype development, and pilot execution that you are connected to through this community.
It’s that ebb and flow of budding and seasoned entrepreneur/investor, student and working professional, young and old — along with the ease of give-and-take — that make this community unique. Everyone is a subject-matter-expert in something, regardless of age, education level, or pedigree. yCITIES fosters an entrepreneurial ecosystem from middle schoolers and beyond that blurs the lines between students and subject-matter-experts. For on any given day, we may be a mentor for one venture, and a mentee for another.
Why Become a CORE member?
Was there a person, experience, or opportunity that impacted you and your trajectory?
Our middle and high school students come to yCITIES with ambition. The yCITIES platform transforms them by giving them an entrepreneurial lens to tackle problems creatively and resourcefully while building their executive presence. But our favorite part of the transformation? It’s when we see our CITIES Scholars afforded the resources and opportunities they need to flourish in real-world settings and challenges.
The Perks of Being a CORE Member
CORE members have lifetime access to unique opportunities to engage with others, such as:
- Give NanoTalks in areas that you are passionate about and/or skilled in
- Initiate a 50 Ways to Lemonade scaffolded virtual brainstorm akin to correspondence chess
- Request “Entrepreneurial Roadside Assistance” to get unstuck en route during an entrepreneurial journey
- Mentor budding entrepreneurs in a variety of scaffolded ways
- Follow along a particular venture for moral support if your mentoring bandwidth is full
- Being mentored (there are eligibility requirements if not a yCITIES alum)
To become a CORE member, you must be open to providing Roadside Assistance (see above) and be recommended by a friend of yCITIES. If you’re interested, reach out to Executive Director Vicky Wu Davis to learn more about how we can turn potential energy into kinetic for our students.