From nothing to
a thought, an idea,
a possibility,
to a new reality
This is the stuff they teach to the brightest minds at Stanford
Our programmes are fully inclusive and we train young people from any background. We introduce Design Thinking and the LEAN Startup process and work through the framework over the course of the first week. We send resources for the students to digest each evening and apply them through assignments during the day. Each of our students will identify problems, ideate solutions, create personas, a lean canvas business model, a prototype, develop a brand and identity, research competitors, customer and market, assess costs/revenues and deliver the story via a live pitch to a panel of industry experts.
Something that we all possess, we've just forgotten
It's not the chosen few that become creative problem solvers
All levels of problem solving begin with one thought. How can we do this better. We encourage students to foster this disruptive thinking. Through the idea stages we run activities that get the students to push the boundaries of their ideas before we get into filtering.
Finally, with all ideas we encourage the students to explore both the human cost and the benefit to society and blend into sustainable solutions. We don’t try to deliberately create social enterprises (that is not our agenda), but we strongly believe that ideas that will stay for the long-term must have a positive net impact on people and planet.
Developing an attitude of abundance
The program at the Academy is set up to make a change to the way i which young people are taught enterprise. That means we prompt an individual to take responsibility for their growth and to get them to think of the benefit to others.
Our core focus is on developing a mindset that embraces the following concepts: Curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration & conflict resolution, compassion and community. In this vein, we teach the students that their thoughts influence actions and ultimately manifest the reality that they believe in.
Confront your biases
Through this process we help young people with their communication and engagement that challenges, where there is no wrong or right answers but we teach the ability to defend and explain what it is that they are doing, why they are doing it and how it will work. Students present their thoughts and ideas and invite criticism from the floor. This is to help build resilience, help deepen the understanding of biases, judgements and concepts they may have, help uncover assumptions and finally strengthen their propositions.
Our program moves at pace. We expect the students to learn in their own time through curated materials we provide, complete assignments overnight and present each day. Self-directed learning is a discipline that we help develop the young people to instil.
During the day the students will be expected to direct their own time and make decisions on what they need to complete and by when. They are expected to self-organise and be driven to completing the tasks at hand - of course we are there to nudge, guide and mentor, but we really want them to take responsibility themselves.