Journey: A Social Entrepreneurship Incubator for Teens to Launch Real Startups

During this course, teen entrepreneurs will work with teammates to ideate, pitch, prototype, and launch their own organizations driven by social and environmental missions.

Proudly in partnership with Comp Sci High, a charter school based in the Bronx, New York City!

90 minutes per class

Meets virtually on a weekly basis from Jan - June of 2022

15 - 18 year olds

20 learners per class

$1800 USD

Course Description

Topics:

Social Entrepreneurship
Innovation and Future Skills Development
Youth Led Startups

Journey is an incubator and launchpad for youth startups that address social and environmental problems. During the course, teen entrepreneurs will ideate, pitch, prototype, and launch their own organizations driven by social missions. Learners will develop entrepreneurial and designer mindset while working with their teams to create companies that solve real problems. Students develop communication, collaboration, prototyping, creative brainstorming, pitching, and business management skills.

Program participants will also receive accounts for the Journey platform, an online innovation learning platform developed by course instructor, Sebastián Martín, and the Cambio Labs team. By using the Journey portal and software, program participants can rewatch video lessons, engage in project-based challenges, collaborate with their startup team members, and submit their assignments online.

Learners will need no previous knowledge about business or entrepreneurship to engage and thrive in this class.

Weekly classes will take place on Sundays. Rescheduling to have classes during a weekday afterschool time slot is possible if there is enough demand.

2022 Curricular Overview & Class Schedule

What is Entrepreneurship? // What is your Entrepreneurial Profile?

Social Innovation Challenge (Team Venture Creation Workshop)

Social Venture Pitches 1.0 (with Entrepreneurial Judges)

Problem Statements // Stakeholder Mapping

Customer Profiling // Customer Interview Introduction

Customer Interview Coaching & Group Work

Drawing Insights from Interviews // Introduction to Design Thinking

Ideation of Product // Sketching & Combining Features

Business Model Creation (using a Business Model Canvas)

Introduction to the

5 Minute Pitch

Social Venture Pitches 2.0 (with Entrepreneurial Judges)

SPRING BREAK

Building Your Startup Team // Project Management Systems

Introduction to Lean Startup // Planning for Testing

Prototyping & Making Minimum Viable Products (MVPs)

Running Your Startup Experiments

Processing Testing Results // Introduction to the Final Pitch

Final Pitch Preparation

Social Venture Pitches 3.0 (with Entrepreneurial Judges)

Samples Slides from Curriculum

2. Social Entrepreneurial Challenge (1).png

2. Social Entrepreneurial Challenge (2).png

8. Interview Processing & Business Models (2).png

8. Interview Processing & Business Models (3).png

2. Social Entrepreneurial Challenge (3).png

8. Interview Processing & Business Models (1).png

9. BMC + Startup Experimentation (2).png

Time Commitment

1 hour 30 minutes per week in class, and an estimated 2 - 4 hours per week outside of class

This is an intensive course, where students will go through a real world entrepreneurial process. This is an extremely hands-on and practical learning experience that is rarely offered - even at the college and post graduate levels of business school.

That being said, taking on this course represents a serious commitment, and the best performance of teen entrepreneurs and their startup teams will be the product of hard work, heartfelt engagement, and consistent attendance. In this course, we will be covering a lot of ground and engaging in new entrepreneurial challenges every week. So missing a class will mean missing out on important content, discussions, and the opportunity to contribute ideas during team work.

If you do enroll for this course, please note that consistent attendance is expected.

Learners, enrolling for this class is equivalent to taking on a weekly afterschool program that will require 3-5 hours of your time, every week. Parents, to make the most of your investment into this unique educational experience and your learner's personal and professional development, please ensure that they attend class every week, and are absent only in the case of emergency.

Breakdown of a Typical 90 Minute Class

15 minutes

of Video or Live Lecture

50 minutes

Group work to Complete Entrepreneurial Challenge

10 minutes

Discussion // Q&A

15 minutes

Closing Discussion // Course Updates

What Participants Should Expect

Incubator Environment

Interactive sessions with rich and targeted discussions
Collaboration and extensive team work
Discovering new skills and sometimes working outside of your comfort zone
Embracing the iterative (and sometimes messy!) design and business testing process
Embracing your inner creative
Becoming comfortable with uncertainty and "failing forward"

Modes of Learning

Frequent Teamwork
Discussions
Presentations & Pitching
Coaching & Mentorship
Meeting Real Entrepreneurs that will Judge the Pitches
Completing Entrepreneurial Challenges
Creating Startup Assets for your Company
Interviewing Customers and Users
Community Engagement
Interpreting Feedback from Users & Experts

This course will be instructed through a variety of media, including video lectures, video case studies, slideshows, virtual whiteboards, and the usage of the Journey online learning platform that all students will have access to.

Journey program participants, prepare to team up with 2-3 other co-founders who will join your entrepreneurial team! On this course, you will meet and work with new friends, creative teammates, and business partners.

Your class will be an exciting innovation hub, launching 5 new startups in 2022!

Sebastián's Teaching Style

Passionate, fun, and deeply engaged in mentoring students for success
Creating spaces where students can lead discussions and share experiences
100% dedicated to project based, real world, and practical learning
Blending local and international examples and perspectives
Tech savvy and expert in multimedia and remote teaching
Always encouraging, never underestimating the talents and creative force of young people!

An Introduction from the Journey Course Instructor

Sebastián Martín

In 2013 I founded Cambio Coffee, an organic social enterprise coffee company that operated in Shanghai, China for 5+ years.

I moved to New York City in 2018 to run the Social Innovation Program at Avenues: The World School, where I taught social entrepreneurship courses to high school students.

I am now launching Cambio Labs, a nonprofit venture that creates educational tech and programs that transform students into social entrepreneurs, designers for impact, and community activists.

I hold a Masters in Global Entrepreneurship from Babson College (#1 university for entrepreneurship) and a Masters in International Management from the University of Sratchclyde. I have lived, studied, and worked all over the world! My favorite type of food is probably a Bolivian salteña.

"I am passionate about empowering youth change makers, and equipping high school students with entrepreneurial mindset and real world problem solving skills that will serve them well in a 21st century world and economy.

I have taught courses to high school students (aged 15 -18) in social entrepreneurship, design thinking, and local community design projects. I love teaching, and creating transformative learning experiences for students that are exciting, student-centered, and rooted in the best practices of real world entrepreneurship and project based learning.

I was a full time high school teacher throughout the pandemic, and am an expert in facilitating online and hybrid classrooms.

I am an expert in social entrepreneurial practice and theory, the coffee and education industries, design thinking and community design processes, early stage businesses development, project based learning, and fostering student-led innovation."

To learn more about Sebastián's professional background and teaching experience, connect with him on LinkedIn

Course Outcomes

21st Century Competencies

Innovation Abilities & Employable Skills

Adaptability
Collaboration
Empathy
Leadership
Critical Thinking
Creativity
Design Thinking
Real-World Problem Solving
Systems Thinking
Hustle & Grit

Communication Skills
Prototyping & Maker Skills
Interviewing Skills
Business Management Skills
Project Management Skills
Financial Planning & Literacy
Research Skills
Marketing & Sales Skills
Design Skills
Interpreting Data & Feedback

Benefits for Participants

Stand Out

to colleges in your upcoming applications as you speak about the startup that you created in high school

Network

with other entrepreneurial teens, community members you serve, and industry professionals

Develop

business and project management skills that will undoubtedly help you secure a great job in the future

Launch

your own company that could potentially become a source of income for you and your teammates

By participating in this course, youth entrepreneurs will develop:

Other Course Details // FAQ

Is there homework on this course?

What kind of supplies do I need to participate in the course?

Internet enabled device and a stable connection.

Paper and pencil for note-taking and sketching.

What kind of grades or assessment will there be?

Journey is a real entrepreneurial experience, and represents a "nontraditional" mode of learning and school.

Participants will not receive letter grades on this course. They will, however, receive regular feedback from course instructors, entrepreneurial judges, and customers or users.

Learners may be occasionally asked to fill out surveys to assess their development of "innovation abilities," and to track their progress and entrepreneurial growth throughout the course.

What kind of technology or software will be needed to participate?

Participants must have an internet enabled device and a stable connection to effectively participate during virtual classes.

We will use Zoom to host virtual meetings and breakout rooms.

Google Suite (Docs, Sheets, and Slides) will be used regularly throughout the course.

Learners will also use the Journey digital platform as a learning management system, Mural.co for virtual brainstorming, and Wix for website creation throughout the Journey course.

"Homework" on the Journey program means completing entrepreneurial challenges on a weekly basis.

This may mean engaging in activities like: creating sketches and planning documents, creating websites and prototypes, conducting interviews, interacting with real customers and users, and preparing for entrepreneurial pitches.

All of these assignments are team challenges, to be completed through collaborative independent work that will take place outside of class time. As a Journey participant, please expect to dedicate 2-4 hours of independent work per week.

Student Testimonials

The course was good about providing students the opportunity to tackle real problems with little guidance and make something so ambitious seem more and more real.

I really liked the team work, advisor and mentor interaction, and the feeling of actually doing something relevant to my future.