Our Students Are Heading to the National Stage: VentureLab at the Mott Million Dollar Challenge

There are moments in this work that stop you in your tracks.

Watching a student go from “I’m not sure I have any good ideas” to standing on a national stage, ready to pitch their solution to a panel of judges, is one of those moments.

This June, VentureLab is heading to Flint, Michigan, and we could not be more proud of why.

Students we have had the privilege of working with are among the 60 semifinalists selected for the Mott Million Dollar Challenge, a national pitch competition for K–12 students funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation as part of its centennial celebration and administered by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) in collaboration with VentureLab, Young Entrepreneur Institute, the Afterschool Alliance, and Collaborative Communications.

We are attending not as competitors, but as mentors, supporters, and proud members of a community that believes deeply in what these students have built.

We are showing up the same way we always do: with belief in young people and commitment to making sure their ideas get the space they deserve.

What Is the Mott Million Dollar Challenge?

The Mott Million Dollar Challenge is a national pitch competition for K–12 students across the country. Kids and teens are invited to dream up businesses, tackle real-world problems, and pitch their best ideas in a simple 30–60 second video.

More than 1,000 prizes will be awarded for top video submissions. Judges then select the top 60 entrants, who receive an additional cash prize and are invited to attend the live competition in Flint, Michigan. The top 60 also receive additional coaching to strengthen their business plans or social solutions and present their pitches before judges and peers for a chance to win larger prizes.

This year’s competition drew submissions from students in all 50 states. More than 5,300 young people submitted over 3,700 business ideas and social solutions. From those entries, 1,500 submissions were selected in the first round, and now the creators behind the top 60 ideas are advancing to compete at a live national event in Flint, Michigan.

That is not a small thing. That is a remarkable thing.

Why This Moment Matters to VentureLab

VentureLab’s mission is to create the next generation of diverse innovators and changemakers by making entrepreneurship education accessible to all youth.

The Mott Million Dollar Challenge is exactly the kind of opportunity that brings that mission to life in a visible, meaningful way.

The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation supports efforts that promote a just, equitable and sustainable society.

The foundation is working to expand access to youth entrepreneurship because it can help young people build mindsets and skills including creativity, problem-solving, resilience, and agency that promote success in school and life.

Those are not just competition values. Those are the values we build into our programs every single day.

When students go through VentureLab programming, they practice identifying real problems, imagining solutions, testing their assumptions, and communicating their ideas with confidence.

They build an entrepreneurial mindset through hands-on learning that feels relevant to their lives and their communities.

The Mott Million Dollar Challenge is proof that this work leads somewhere. Students do not just walk away with skills. They walk away with ideas ready for a national stage.

What the Semifinalists Are Pitching

The range of ideas represented in this year’s top 60 is a window into how young people see the world and what they want to fix.

One team of California students created Tech Buddies for Seniors, a donation-supported community service that helps older adults learn to use smartphones. Two third-grade students from Arkansas developed Replush: Stuffed with Purpose, a toy concept designed to reduce plastic waste. A ninth-grade student from Arizona invented the FlavoPeel Cup, a sustainable alternative to plastic cups made from fruit peels and natural ingredients.

These are not hypothetical school projects. These are real solutions to real problems, built by students who learned to ask: “What do I notice? What would help? How do I turn this idea into something I can actually explain and defend?”

That is entrepreneurship education working exactly as it should.

From the Classroom to Flint: What the Journey Looks Like

For the students VentureLab has supported along the way, getting to Flint represents a journey that started long before the competition.

It started the first time a teacher asked them to look at a problem in their community and imagine what could be different. It started when they had to take a messy idea and shape it into something they could communicate clearly. It started when they had to revise, try again, and keep going.

As the Mott Foundation noted when launching the challenge, every young person has the potential to make a difference. Entrepreneurial experiences like this show young people that their voices matter, their ideas can become real solutions, and their communities need their leadership.

That is the message VentureLab carries into every classroom, every afterschool program, and every educator training. The students heading to Flint this June have heard it. And now they are living it.

The Role of Mentors in Student Success

It would be easy to watch a student give a polished, confident pitch and think they arrived there naturally. That is rarely how it works.

Behind every student on that stage in Flint is a network of adults who believed in them early, made time for them, created space for their ideas, and taught them that failure is part of the process, not the end of it.

Teachers who introduced the challenge in their classrooms. Program leaders who stayed late to help students refine their videos. Mentors who asked better questions instead of just giving answers.

VentureLab’s role at the Mott Million Dollar Challenge is the same role we play everywhere we show up: supportive, present, and committed to making sure students have what they need to go as far as their ideas can take them.

We are not the story in Flint. The students are the story, but we are proud to be part of it.

Why Events Like This Matter for the Future of Education

Youth entrepreneurship competitions do more than hand out prizes. They demonstrate, in a very public way, what students are capable of when they are given permission to think boldly and the tools to act on it.

The Mott Million Dollar Challenge is designed to shine a light on entrepreneurship education as a meaningful way to help students build the skills they need to navigate and shape the future.

That framing matters. Education systems are actively searching for approaches that prepare students for a world that changes faster than any curriculum can keep up with.

Problem-solving, creativity, resilience, communication, and the ability to spot an opportunity and do something with it—these are the skills that travel. They matter in a job interview, in a community organization, in a small business, and in a life well-lived.

Competitions like Mott Million make the case for entrepreneurship education in a way that is hard to argue with. You cannot watch a first-grader pitch an idea with clarity and conviction and walk away thinking this does not matter.

How You Can Support the Next Generation of Young Entrepreneurs

If you are an educator or program leader who wants your students to have experiences like this, the path forward starts with building entrepreneurship education into what you do now.

You do not need a fancy program or a big budget to start. You need an approach that helps students ask good questions, test their ideas, and learn from what they discover. VentureLab builds that approach into curriculum and tools designed for real classrooms and real afterschool programs.

If you are a donor or funder, what you are seeing in Flint is the return on investment in youth entrepreneurship education. It is young people with confidence, ideas, and the skills to turn those ideas into action.

VentureLab Is Proud to Be a Part of This

VentureLab is an official partner in the Mott Million Dollar Challenge. That means our team has been part of making this experience possible for thousands of students across the country, from the competition infrastructure to the mentorship and curriculum support behind the scenes.

Showing up in Flint this June is not just about celebrating what students have already accomplished. It is about reinforcing that this kind of work has a home, that there are adults and organizations who take young people’s ideas seriously, and that the investment in entrepreneurship education creates real, visible outcomes.

We will see you in Flint.

Get Involved with VentureLab

Want to bring entrepreneurship education to your students? Explore VentureLab programs and curriculum at venturelab.org.

Learn more about VentureLab Ignite, our student-facing challenge and innovation platform. If you are a donor or partner interested in expanding access to entrepreneurship education for more youth, we would love to hear from you.

FAQs:

What is the Mott Million Dollar Challenge? The Mott Million Dollar Challenge is a national pitch competition for K–12 students in all 50 states, funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and administered by NFTE in collaboration with VentureLab and other partners. Students submit a short video pitching a business idea or community solution for a chance to win a share of $1 million in prizes.

What is VentureLab’s role in the Mott Million Dollar Challenge? VentureLab is an official partner in the Mott Million Dollar Challenge, supporting the competition’s infrastructure and contributing to the mentorship and entrepreneurship education resources available to participants. VentureLab team members and educators connected to VentureLab have also worked directly with students competing in the challenge.

When and where is the Mott Million Dollar Challenge finals event? The live finals event takes place June 15–16, 2026, in downtown Flint, Michigan. The top 60 semifinalists from across the country will pitch their ideas in person for a chance to win larger prizes.

How does a competition like Mott Million Dollar Challenge connect to entrepreneurship education? The challenge puts core entrepreneurship skills, including problem identification, solution design, communication, and iteration, into a real-world context. Students do not just learn entrepreneurial thinking in theory. They apply it to a genuine idea, for an actual audience, with real stakes. That experience builds the kind of confidence and competence that carries beyond the competition.

How can educators prepare students for competitions like the Mott Million Dollar Challenge? Start by building habits of problem-noticing into your classroom or program. Encourage students to observe their communities, ask “why” questions, and imagine solutions. VentureLab curriculum and VentureLab Ignite challenges are designed to help students develop exactly these habits and give them practice presenting and defending their ideas.