Call for The Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition (CEC) 2026 is open now!!!
At the Entrepreneurship Campus, ideas turn into real change. If you want to start, experiment, and truly make an impact, the CEC is the right place for you! At the CEC, you get everything you need to turn your ideas into reality: a global community, valuable knowledge, targeted networking and all of it for free. Here, people come together who don’t settle for the status quo but take action, spot opportunities, and shape the future.
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The Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition (CEC) is aimed especially at young entrepreneurs and empowers them to develop ideas for a more peaceful and sustainable world. Participants are encouraged to create ideas with social impact and to actively contribute to one or more of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which address the key social, economic, environmental, and health challenges of our time. Entrepreneurs from age 13 and up are invited to submit their ideas and become part of an international community.
The Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition (CEC) was created with the support of the GOI Peace Foundation and Christian Fenner from Digital Experts United (DEU) and launched as part of the UNESCO Programme of Action on Education for Sustainable Development during the UNESCO Youth Summit 2013 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. For this purpose, the Entrepreneurship Foundation and its partners developed the Entrepreneurship Campus, where entrepreneurs can network, exchange and learn about our kind of entrepreneurship for free.
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1. Youth Opportunities: https://m.me/j/AbZTmgEzD1UchDte/
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The Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition was initiated in 2013 to empower entrepreneurs around the world to find innovative responses to global and/or community challenges and to work towards a more peaceful and sustainable world. Initially, the focus was primarily on entrepreneurs between the ages of 13 – 29 – at the time, it was known as the Youth Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition. In 2020, they dropped the Youth from the name in order to address and attract everyone equally. However, the focus on promoting young people in particular was retained and is reflected in the extra honour with the Youngstar Award, to an idea/project of an entrepreneur between 13 – 29 years of age, at the end of each CEC. Through the cooperation with the University for Sustainable Development Eberswalde (HNE) in 2019, we put the issue of tourism in the spotlight, with a separate category for submissions dealing with this topic, in order to show how sustainable tourism can and should work based on the innovative ideas from all over the world – especially from countries heavily affected by tourism.
After the end of the CEC 2022, DEU went its own way and we took this as an opportunity to redesign the CEC and completely restructure ourselves. Since 2023, the newly designed CEC has been available free of charge to creative minds and visionaries on the Entrepreneurship Campus, which is also new.
Location:
OnlineBenefits
- There are no cash prizes, scholarships or other financial resources in the CEC. You gain knowledge, contacts, a business plan in the form of our Entrepreneurial Design (as long as you complete it conscientiously) and an official certificate from Stiftung Entrepreneurship (Foundation Entrepreneurship) on the completion of the Entrepreneurship courses and the placement in the Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition.
- Sustainable & Impact-Driven Entrepreneurship: Learn how to develop an idea that combines economic viability with real social value.
- Entrepreneurial Design & Business Model Development: Build a strong and creative business model. Step by step.
- Feedback, Visibility & Global Community: Grow through feedback – worldwide
Eligibilities
- Participation in the CEC 2026 requires submitting an idea addressing UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with all entries submitted in English as “Ideas” rather than “Projects.” Eligibility mandates completing two specific courses (“Brains versus Capital” & “Sustainable Entrepreneurship”), finalizing the Entrepreneurial Design Canvas (EDC), and submitting before May 5, 2026, while avoiding fraudulent voting. More information is available on the Stiftung Entrepreneurship website.
Application Process
For application go through the apply link.
Application Deadline: June 6, 2026 (57 Days Remaining)
Apply nowOfficial link
