Meet 2025 De La Vega Global Entrepreneurship Award Finalists

December 16, 2024

In the first week of December, JA Americas and JA Africa held their Company of the Year competitions, naming their 2024 regional champions and completing the list of finalists for the 2025 De La Vega Global Entrepreneurship Award.

The De La Vega Global Entrepreneurship Award recognizes outstanding JA entrepreneurs. The first-place team from each of our six annual regional JA company competitions (including Company of the Year, Gen-E, Youth Entrepreneurship Celebration, and National Student Leadership Summit) are automatically entered as finalists for the award. The winning team receives awards, plus US $15,000, educational opportunities, and more.

JA’s entrepreneurship programs teach students real-world business skills so that they’ll be ready to create the jobs of the future. Through the JA Company Program, students launch businesses that deliver products and services. They research and develop a concept, create a business plan and organizational structure, test product prototypes and order raw materials, test service processes, and then produce, market, and sell their goods.

Working as a team, handling real customers, and making real profits, JA students get a leg up when it comes to work readiness and financial acumen. By the end of the program, students demonstrate their understanding of how and why their companies performed as they did, including reviewing profit assessments and producing a final report.

Until 2021, the highest award a JA student company could earn was the coveted first-place prize in one of the six regional competitions. But now, thanks to the generous support of the de la Vega family, JA Worldwide offers a global prize for JA student companies: The De La Vega Global Entrepreneurship Award, which recognizes the world’s next great entrepreneurs: young people who are going to change the world.