Actionable Innovations Conversations Shownotes: Entrepreneurship in High Schools
Winter Series 2022 — Week 4
On February 11th, we had the honor of hosting three accomplished entrepreneurs and learning more about their lives’ work. Currently, Sarah Hernholm, Sebastian Martin, and Lloyd Nimetz run entrepreneurship programs for high school students and they shared their different approaches. They all share a passion for encouraging youth to use their talents and interests to make a difference.
As a former classroom teacher, Sarah noted that while she loved teaching, she didn’t love the disruption that came from constant cuts in schools as a young teacher. She chose to eliminate this toxicity and decided, “I would take what I learned from the classroom and help young people keep making a difference.” Whatever It Takes (WIT) is the result. Students can log in every week and get access to support and strategies via mentors entrepreneurs and peers to apply to their businesses. There is also a coaching component to WIT. Sarah says, “I think that’s the gift of being an adult and the responsibility of being an adult as an educator, is to create the spaces for our young people to shine” and WIT also has a podcast that features student entrepreneurs.
Sebastian’s work started in social entrepreneurship; he founded a wholesale coffee company that was more equitable to farmers in South America. He learned a great deal from this experience and thought that it would be great to pass on lessons learned to others, so he began teaching social entrepreneurship concepts first in China where he had been living, and then at Avenues: The World School in New York. He then realized that he’d like to bring similar experiences to more students, particularly in low-income settings, and thus he launched Cambio Labs which operates on a buy one, give one model. For every school, that purchases a program, a Title 1 school is given access to the program. Cambio Labs operates a technology platform within its program that allows students to learn about entrepreneurship in a gamified setting.
Lloyd has been both an investor and an entrepreneur over the course of his career, and began teaching entrepreneurship as part of his work running a start-up incubator for 4.0 Schools. During this time, he realized that it was important to teach innovation skills and mindsets to young people because they are now entering into an innovation economy and thus he started Spike Lab. Spike Lab’s model is very intense one-on-one coaching with students who are willing to make it one of the top two or three priorities beyond academics in high school. Lloyd says, “It has to be like as a sport; it has to be something they’re really committing to because it’s going to take many hours every single week for a long period of time.” His program works directly with families. Lloyd reflected on the power of Spike Lab: “At the core of our mission so our mission is purpose-driven innovators for life. And the core of developing purpose is really the most important thing in this whole process, especially around adolescence, the period of adolescence, when they’re forming their identity who they are. This sort of project is so incredibly powerful and channeling and building self-worth and competence.”
The conversations during this session were rich and we encourage you to watch or listen to the session in its entirety.
About Our Guests
Sarah Hernholm is the Founder/President of WIT — Whatever It Takes (WIT) and host of the DO WIT podcast. Sarah’s focus is on creating platforms for teens to use their voices, launch businesses, and create sustainable impact in their communities. Sarah champions young entrepreneurs who are committed to innovation and to doing “whatever it takes to make the world a better place.” In addition, she’s a 3x TEDx speaker, contributor to FORBES, Today Show blogger, and one of these days, she will finally finish her book “The 11 Tips for Doing WIT”.
Sebastian Martin is a social entrepreneur and educator based in NYC. In 2013 he founded Cambio Coffee, an organic social enterprise coffee company that operated in Shanghai for 5+ years. Sebastian moved to New York City in 2018 to run the Social Innovation Program at Avenues: The World School. He is now launching Cambio Labs, a nonprofit venture that works to create access to technology and school programs that develop 21st century, real-world problem-solving skills. They are now piloting Journey, a social entrepreneurship course where teen entrepreneurs work with teammates to ideate, pitch, prototype, and launch their own organizations driven by social and environmental missions.
Lloyd Nimetz is the founder of Spike Lab, a one-on-one youth entrepreneurship coaching program that helps high schoolers stand out to top US colleges by launching a “Spike,” a highly ambitious passion project with real-world impact. He is a serial entrepreneur and startup investor who has been a founder of seven for-profits and nonprofits in the US, Taiwan, Argentina, and India. Previously he directed 4.0 Schools’ education startup accelerator and before that was the co-founder of Dev Bootcamp NYC (parent company was acquired by Kaplan Inc in 2014). Lloyd went to Stanford University (MBA), studied undergrad at Williams College, and was a Fulbright Scholar. He has lived all over the world and currently resides in his native New York City with his wife, three children, and dog.
Resources
Here are resources from this AI Conversation!
WIT’s various Instagram accounts:
- https://www.instagram.com/miss_wit/
- https://www.instagram.com/doing_wit/
- https://www.instagram.com/dowitpodcast/
Next Actionable Innovations Conversations
Next week on February 18th, Apple Distinguished Educator Steve Douglass with share details about his innovative Chicago Summer Stories multimedia project. And we’ve just announced three more AI Conversations. Ketan and Manish Kothari are the inventors of the AlphaSmart Device, co-founders of Root-1, and led Edmodo for a number of years. The brothers will join us on February 25th to share their entrepreneurship journey.
Dr. Gary Stager will join us on March 4th and Alefiya Master will be our guest on March 11th. Alefiya is the founder and CEO of MAD-learn, an app development program for students.
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