Foursquare CEO & co-founder Dennis Crowley will join other young entrepreneurs as ambassadors for 'Movers & Changers'--a nationwide challenge to find the next wave of leading entrepreneurs. Competition finalists will be featured in the mtvU short-form series, premiering this fall on mtvU.

Two finalists will fly to New York to open Global Entrepreneurship Week by ringing The Opening Bell at the New York Stock Exchange, with the winner taking home $25,000 in startup money. It is the third year that the competition, a partnership of NYSE Euronext and mtvU, will occur as a part of GEW. 

"We're excited to reunite with Viacom and mtvU on the quest to find America?s next generation of young innovators and entrepreneurs," said Marisa Ricciardi, Senior Vice President, NYSE Euronext Global Head of Marketing. "The 'Movers & Changers' competition is a perfect platform for college students to express their creativity, showcase their inventive ideas and realize their dreams."

"America's colleges are incubators for some of the most innovative and successful business ideas in the world," said Carlo DiMarco, Senior Vice President of mtvU University Relations. "mtvU's partnership with NYSE Euronext provides the ideal route to take the country's best young minds from the classroom to the boardroom."

Crowley is the co-founder of foursquare, a service that combines social networks, location awareness and game mechanics to encourage people explore the world around them. Previously, Dennis founded dodgeball.com, one of the first mobile social services in the US, which was acquired by Google in 2005. Joining Crowley as ambassadors and role models for the contestants are Charlie Chanaratsopon, CEO and Founder of Charming Charlie, and Alexis Maybank and Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, Co-founders of Gilt Groupe. 

(more after the video)

'Movers & Changers' calls on 16-28 year old college students, individually or in teams of up to three people, to develop and produce a compelling business proposal. Ideas must be creative, original, and scalable to large corporations. Students can submit entries online at www.moversandchangers.com and are encouraged to submit a video elevator pitch application from now until Oct. 3, 2011.  

The competition will culminate at the Movers & Changers Forum on Monday, Nov. 14, 2011, taking place during Global Entrepreneurship Week, sponsored by the NYSE Euronext Foundation. The top five business proposals will be voted on by the college audience and two teams will then be flown to New York City for the Movers & Changers Forum, where they will ring the NYSE Opening Bell. The grand prize winner will be announced on stage at the NYSE.

mtvU and the NYSE unveiled the first-ever 'Movers & Changers' competition in 2009 and followed it up with a successful 2010 campaign. Last year, each team of finalists presented its business plan to the 'Movers and Changers' Board, a gathering of top business and social media professionals that included Entertainer and Chairman of TeenNick,  Nick Cannon; CNBC's Jim Cramer; CEO of (RED) Susan Smith Ellis; Tumblr Founder David Karp; and Next Jump Inc's CEO and Chairman Charlie Kim. In an extremely competitive field, the judges chose University of Tennessee students Aeron Glover and Kaliv Parker as the Grand Prize Winner. Glover and Parker impressed the 'Movers & Changers' Board with their eloquent presentation and well-conceived business idea, HowstheLiving.com, an international student review housing site.

The 'Movers & Changers' competition with mtvU and Viacom is one of many collaborations between NYSE Euronext and its listed-issuer community and underscores NYSE Euronext's commitment to inspire the next generation of young entrepreneurs, new and established enterprises, investors and the public to innovate and gain a better understanding of finance and global capital markets.

tags: Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, Alexis Maybank, Charlie Chanaratsopon, Dennis Crowley, Foursquare, mtvu, NYSE