BizWorld Foundation Announces Benefit Luncheon Featuring Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com and Tim Draper, Managing Partner Draper Fisher Jurvetson

BizWorld Foundation, a national not-for-profit organization dedicated to teaching entrepreneurship and business skills to kids, will host its annual luncheon on December 14th at the new St. Regis Hotel in downtown San Francisco. The event will feature Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce.com, Tim Draper, BizWorld Founder and Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and BizWorld students from NorthStar Academy in Redwood City and Gloria R. Davis Preparatory, in Hunter's Point. All proceeds from the luncheon will benefit the BizWorld Foundation.

"We are thrilled to have Marc Benioff as our featured speaker this year," remarked Tim Draper. "He has been an inspiration in corporate philanthropy, and it is great to see the Salesforce.com Foundation and BizWorld Foundation working together to improve education and our community and around the world."

Collaboration between the BizWorld Foundation and Salesforce.com began earlier in the year, when the two launched BizWorld's first "BizAcademy," a program for high school students. The week long "mini-MBA" program, which taught entrepreneurial skills and CRM basics to 24 business-minded students, allowed students to learn directly from mentors in the business community and provided each of student with a paid summer internship.

"The BizAcademy students had a unique opportunity to bolster their entrepreneurial instincts and learn what it takes to launch a successful business," stated Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com. Catherine Hutton, Executive Director of the BizWorld Foundation, elaborated, "Schools are under pressure to produce results with fewer resources than before, while at the same time finding ways to motivate their students. In BizWorld and BizAcademy, kids apply what they learn in school to real world situations, so they understand how school prepares them for life!"

Established in 1997 and headquartered in San Francisco, the BizWorld Foundation provides curriculum to 3-8th grade teachers across the country and around the world. BizWorld programs add relevancy to academics by teaching entrepreneurship and business concepts in a real world context, and hopes to inspire children by instilling in them that they too can become the next successful entrepreneur or top CEO. To date, the BizWorld Foundation has reached over 100,000 students in all 50 states and in 84 countries. BizWorld established its first international partnership in the Netherlands in 2001, a partnership in Singapore followed in 2002 with the most recent additions in South Korea and India.

Mike Harris, teacher at NorthStar Academy, remembers, "I was looking for more project-based learning activities to implement in my classroom and having worked in the business world prior to my career as a teacher, BizWorld gave me an opportunity to share these experiences with my students."

In addition to rapid program expansion, the BizWorld Foundation recently celebrated an organizational milestone, ringing the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange. The event, which marked BizWorld's expansion into New York, was especially exciting for DaShae Whitney, a 4th grade BizKid student from North Carolina who was picked to ring the bell. In addition, BizWorld students from the Bronx Preparatory Charter School took to the floor of the Exchange, handing out their BizWorld friendship bracelets to the traders.

Tickets to the luncheon are available or donations are welcome through the BizWorld website, www.bizworld.org. For more information, please call (415) 503-5880 or send a check to: The BizWorld Foundation, 444 De Haro Street, Suite 203, San Francisco, CA 94107.

Media contact: Alex Skillman The Jana Group for BizWorld Foundation Email Contact 415-342-6425