“Challenging, awesome, amazing, and fun experience!” “Great opportunity to learn design thinking!” “Enjoyed meeting and working with new people”. “Excited to use this knowledge!” These were some of the words San Diego Unified High School students used to describe their experience as participants in Entrepreneurship Week. The event was designed in partnership by SDUSD College & Career Technical Education and Intuit, designers of Turbotax, Quickbooks, and Mint. Over three days 500+ SDUSD students participated in a Social Entrepreneurship Challenge and a Career Readiness Conference. The Social Entrepreneurship Challenge on November 17th and 18th connected students across all of the SDUSD high schools. During the two-day challenge, students selected a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to focus on, learned Intuit's own design thinking process, and worked together with a team to think of possible solutions to global and local needs. Through this real-world experience students' use of the skills companies believe are essential were on full display. Students were assigned to random breakout rooms. They had to communicate and get their team organized. Using Intuit’s Design for Delight design thinking process, and Mural, the application they would collaborate in, was all new to the students. They adapted to using this new process and tool quickly which allowed them to dive into researching their SDG and use critical thinking skills to identify the global and local needs. Students then brainstormed potential solutions, narrowed their focus and moved to consensus on a specific idea for which they created a solution. They then designed a plan and test. The last step was presenting their idea and plan. Students were asked to submit a video in which they pitched their solution. In the end, all 81 teams made the submission deadline. The Career Readiness Conference hosted by Intuit on November 19th was the culminating event. The conference began with the announcement of the teams recognized by the Intuit Innovation Catalysts as the top three finalists (see below) from the Social Entrepreneurship Challenge. The audience watched each of their videos and was asked to vote for their top design solution. This event featured keynote speaker, Daymond John, the Star of ABC’s Shark Tank. He spoke honestly and shared stories of success and failure as he discussed his SHARK Points, Set a Goal, Homework - do yours, Amor (love) what you do, Remember, you are the brand, and Keep swimming. Sessions gave the students an opportunity to learn about finding their why and they had an opportunity to choose career sessions and meet Intuit young professionals in the career. After the keynote, students attended a session on “Find My Why”. The Intuit Innovation Catalyst guided students through questions to help them land on a career to explore. During the last segment of the conference, students chose to learn more about marketing/web design/social media, project management, product design, software engineer/programming, business/finance analyst, or sales. After the career focused sessions, all participants were invited for the closing announcements and to learn which student team would be recognized as the winner of the Social Entrepreneurship Challenge. And the winner was … Team 5 from SDG 3 Good Health and Well Being, whose solution was to address the need of youth and family undernourishment. Their plan was to work with farms to acquire food that might go unused due to grocery stores not accepting it due to appearance, not quality of taste. In addition they created a system to distribute the food to youth and families in need. This was definitely an experience students, educators, and Intuit team members will remember. For students it was resume worthy, offered an opportunity to gain essential skills, and something they may want to share on future college applications or job interviews. For educators, it was reenergizing to see students voluntarily participating in a real world experience. For the Intuit team, it was a large scale experiment that was a success and impacted 500+ students.
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