What we’re about
The mission of City Startup Labs (CSL) is to consistently deliver leading-edge entrepreneurial education and skills training to underserved, underrepresented, and marginalized populations resulting in new economic activity. CSL sits at the nexus of entrepreneurship, racial equity, reentry, socio-economic mobility, and technology.
Since 2014 CSL, a Charlotte, NC-based nonprofit, has been the preeminent accelerator program for aspiring African American millennials (initially black males). We currently work with returning citizens, through the ReEntry Entrepreneurship Program (REEP) and develop Black tech talent and ventures through BlkTech Interactive (BTI).
CSL has been closing the entrepreneurial divide, where these populations haven’t been adequately participating in startup activity and business building. CSL creates this new class of entrepreneurs by providing a robust, accelerated, progressive and disciplined approach to developing entrepreneurial talent, new venture creation and deployment.
From the start, City Startup Labs has been a catalyst for developing entrepreneurial talent and capacity as an innovative approach to workforce development. Even though we’re an entrepreneurial support organization (ESO), CSL isn’t solely nor primarily focused on enterprise deployment, but rather we’re in the human potential business, focusing on those who has often been on the periphery of any opportunity to express their full entrepreneurial capabilities and value. When these capabilities are cultivated, there are potentially a host of new applications for these value-added employees, and self-employed business owners.
City Startup Labs envisions a future of experimentation with new ideas, the fostering of new ventures, and where entrepreneurship can be a tool for social capital, innovation, meaningful work, resilience, wealth creation, and restorative justice. We call this 21st Century workforce development.
