Local Entrepreneur to Participate in Junior Achievement’s Global Connection Program

Local business owner and entrepreneur, Peter Kozodoy, will participate in this year’s Junior Achievement Global Connection Program . Peter is the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Owner of GEM Advertising , a communications and marketing agency located in New Haven, Connecticut, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Twenty high school students from Shanghai, China, and sixteen high school students from Connecticut will participate in an innovative Junior Achievement (JA) exchange program sponsored by United Technologies Corporation (UTC). As a result of this program, the students will learn first-hand about American and Chinese business, entrepreneurship, global trade and leadership.

This year’s program will begin on Aug. 10 th in Hartford, Connecticut with an opening ceremony that will commence a week of lectures, seminars, and workshops including guest speakers from UTC and the U.S. Department of Commerce . JA Global Connection is aimed at helping students better understand each other’s cultures, economies and global business in general. The main workshop asks students to conceptually manufacture and sell a product or service that both generates profits and creates a return for investors, thereby transforming the teenage executives into entrepreneurs.

Peter Kozodoy has been teaching for JA for the last four years and has been a member of the New Haven Board of Directors for one year. Peter will be participating in a panel discussion during this year’s Junior Achievement Global Connection Program as an example of a young, successful entrepreneur.

During the panel he will be discussing such things as the impetus for entrepreneurship, brand differentiation, challenges that entrepreneurs face, business values, mentorship, and leadership. He will join fellow CT entrepreneurs Paul Dupervil of Real Property Management/Southern CT and Onyeka Obiocha of Happy Life Coffee. Peter founded GEM Advertising with CT Small Business Person of the Year, Christopher Bartlett, and acting Creative Director, Alex Winter, in 2008. GEM Advertising is a full-service, international communications and marketing agency that has worked with and created successful campaigns for companies and organizations such as: Albertus Magnus College , CT Sinus Center , the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce , the Regional Water Authority and North Pacific Yachts.

“As an entrepreneur, giving back to the next generation is the most powerful thing I can do,” said Peter. “Junior Achievement is an organization that understands the education gap in today’s system and empowers young people by giving them the full scope of what a successful life in the working world can look like. Beyond that, the Southwest New England chapter goes out of its way to create programs like Global Connection, which steps way outside the local business climate and literally extends around the world. Every child needs JA, and I’m proud to be part of that message”

In the summer of 2016 the Connecticut students – many from Wallingford’s Mark T. Sheehan and Lyman Hall high schools – will travel to China to complete the program. Most of the students are sophomores and juniors.

The program first took place two years ago, when the first group of Chinese students spent a week in Connecticut, working with their American counterparts. Last year, those Connecticut students reconnected with the students in China. The JA Global Exchange program is organized by Junior Achievement China, based in Beijing, and Junior Achievement of Southwest New England, based in Hartford. Teachers from both China and Connecticut will be working with the students.

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