In the spirit of reflection and appreciation for those who have made VentureLab’s tremendous growth possible, I want to share the impact that we are making in our efforts to spread youth entrepreneurship education around the world. A big THANK YOU, to those who support our work, donate to our cause, and help spread our mission in a myriad of ways! Here are some highlights from 2017. (We hope you’re as excited about them as we are.)
We believe entrepreneurial learning should be available to all kids, regardless of their economic status, background, or life circumstances. So this year, we radically shifted our approach to ensure that students around the world could have free and open access to our curriculum. On August 1st we launched our middle school and high school curriculum on our website, providing students around the world with free and open access to entrepreneurial learning.
To date we have taught 600 instructors, 5000 students, and have users in more than 40 countries around the world teaching our curriculum! In fact, two of our most involved partners reside in Poland and Panama, pointing to the potential for entrepreneurial learning to become a worldwide movement. One of the most rewarding parts of our work is hearing from our community and seeing how entrepreneurship courses, clubs, and other innovative uses of our curriculum continue to sprout up. I look forward to sharing some of these stories in the coming year.
And because we need all hands on deck to make sure that our future generation is prepared for whatever life throws at them, we’ve been ramping up our global training initiatives. This October, VentureLab was invited back to train 80 Central American educators, administrators, and policy-makers in Panama as part of TeachHer, a public-private partnership between the U.S. Department of States and UNESCO aimed at empowering girls in STEAM fields.
We walked through our hands-on entrepreneurial learning process, and shared best practices for engaging girls in the classroom and for boosting creative thinking through entrepreneurial learning. Here’s some feedback we got that still makes me smile:
“The VentureLab team was absolutely phenomenal and the response from the participants was overwhelmingly positive… The VentureLab modules were a great break, injecting interactivity, engagement and quite a lot of laughter into the training.”
I’m also extremely excited to share that VentureLab was awarded three grants to provide entrepreneurial learning training to educators and parents from all around the U.S., impacting the lives of thousands of children. We’ll be sure to share more details as we roll out these exciting initiatives. And finally, we’re working hard to launch our free elementary school programs by next spring so that we are sparking resilience and creativity in kids of all ages.
Now, perhaps more than ever, it’s important to serve as an advocate for the future generation. Our work would not be possible without your continued support and generosity, and without the dedication and engagement of our amazing instructors. So whether it’s helping us spread the word about our free lessons or supporting our mission by making a donation, thank you for being a champion for entrepreneurial learning.
We’re excited for the possibilities in the coming year. #DreamBig
– Dr. Cristal Glangchai and the VentureLab team
