The U.S. Chamber on January 31 committed an additional $1 million to K-12, college, and post-graduate entrepreneurship education in 2011. The Chamber’s work in entrepreneurship education will bolster the private sector component of the White House’s new “Startup America” initiative, a national campaign to promote entrepreneurship.

“All of America’s businesses started as an idea—an idea brought to reality by hard working entrepreneurs,” says Stan Anderson, managing director for the U.S. Chamber’s Campaign for Free Enterprise. “These are the dreamers and the innovators that are the foundation of our economy. This campaign will help the innovators, thinkers, and doers of tomorrow continue building the American Dream.”

The $1 million investment by the Campaign for Free Enterprise and the National Chamber Foundation will help finance the following groups and their initiatives:

• Students in Free Enterprise – targeting 50 Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) campuses (one per state) to work with local chambers of commerce to create projects promoting entrepreneurship, culminating in an American Free Enterprise Impact Report.
• Kairos Society – sponsoring the 50 most innovative student startups, to be announced in February at the Kairos Global Summit, to give a voice to the world’s best and brightest young entrepreneurs in Washington, D.C., so they can more easily navigate the hurdles of getting a business up and running.
• Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour – reaching more than 50 college campuses to communicate the benefits of free enterprise and inspire the nation’s next generation of entrepreneurs.
• Junior Achievement Partnership – commissioning a nationwide survey—the first of its kind—to measure high school students’ knowledge of the free enterprise system.

Learn more about the Campaign’s youth outreach.