Part 1: CUTV News Radio Spotlights Steve Mariotti of NFTE

Princeton, NJ – Steve Mariotti is the founder and former president of the global nonprofit Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), and a prominent advocate for the transformative power of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education in low-income communities worldwide.

Goodbye Homeboy: How My Students Drove Me Crazy and Inspired a Movement, Marioitti’s memoir of his early career as a public high school teacher and the founding of NFTE, will be published August 6th. 

In 1981, Mariotti was mugged by a group of five young teenagers. As a result, he suffered from severe PTSD. He then met with Dr. Albert Ellis, who helped Mariotti.

“Dr. Ellis told me: ‘I want you to be a teacher in the worst schools with the most troubled kids in New York City,” Mariotti remembers.

In 1982, Mariotti became a special education teacher for kids who could not return to public schools. His assignment was to reach out to as many of these kids as possible.

Mariotti eventually discovered he could motivate even his most challenging students by teaching them to run a small business.

This began Mariotti teaching entrepreneurship to low-income students. The experience inspired him to establish Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship to empower at-risk youth.

Mariotti founded NFTE on a teacher's salary in 1987. Today, the organization is a leading global provider of entrepreneurship education for low-income youth, operating in 10 countries and serving nearly one million young people to date.

For more information on Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, visit www.nfte.com

For more information on Steve Mariotti, visit www.stevemariotti.com