Venture for America (VFA) is a new nonprofit organization and the brainchild of Brown alum Andrew Yang, a lawyer turned entrepreneur who wanted to give like-minded students a jump-start to working at fast-growing companies rather than opting for graduate school and a professional services career. Their goal? Revitalizing U.S. cities through entrepreneurship by placing recruits for a two-year fellowship at early-stage companies in what it calls “lower-cost cities.” In 2012, following a summer of intensive training at Brown University, forty Venture for America fellows will join startups in Detroit, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, New Orleans, and Providence. Plans are already underway for 2013 when the program will expand the number of cities served and VFA Fellows recruited.
