Who We Are
What We Do
Why It's Important
Who We Are
The mission of 21st Century Leaders is to inspire the next generation of Georgia leaders by empowering high school students with essential business and community leadership skills through programs connecting a diverse group of enthusiastic peers and passionate professionals. To fulfill its mission, 21st Century Leaders provides leadership development programming to the state’s high school students. 21st Century Leaders participants come from 185 Georgia high schools and reflect Georgia’s diversity – they hail from urban and rural settings and represent a range of religious, social, economic and ethnic backgrounds. Since its inception, 21st Century Leaders has helped develop the leadership skills of more than 4,100 students during our summer programs alone. Program graduates are making their mark at colleges and universities across the country, in corporations such as the Home Depot, AFLAC, Cox Enterprises and Turner Broadcasting System, and as volunteers with a variety of community agencies.
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What We Do
Leadership Unplugged: A CNN Experience is a 21st Century Leaders program designed to enhance high school students' skills in personal leadership and critical thinking while focusing on media, current events and expanding worldviews.
Rising junior and senior high school students reside on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta for a week during the summer, thanks to a partnership with Georgia Tech's CEISMC. Students work with dozens of other future leaders in hands-on, interactive workshops designed to build their personal and professional leadership skills.
Each Leadership Unplugged workshop is a dynamic, interactive experience led by professionals…the kind of training major companies provide to their high-level leaders. Students meet with top leaders from CNN to hear their views on future leadership challenges and opportunities in on-air and online media.
Students spend a day at the CNN World Headquarters, learning from the professionals who bring us the news from around the world 24 hours a day, and have the opportunity to participate in a news-related project during the week!
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Why It's Important
Leadership Unplugged: A CNN Experience connects leadership development, media literacy and journalism experience in an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for youth who are leaders in their communities and are preparing themselves to make a difference in the world.
21st Century Leaders must think critically and incorporate an understanding of differing worldviews into decision-making. Leaders are challenged to sift through information from multiple viewpoints so that their actions, and those of their teams, are focused. The ability to communicate a vision, while providing a context for action, is a skill of a good leader.
Leadership Unplugged: A CNN Experience will help you build those skills. You will impress colleges and employers as a 21st Century Leader!
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