This summer, Park Tudor will once again offer the Innovators Institute, a high school program where students' daily experiences include working with Indianapolis' best and brightest entrepreneurs, collaborating with students from varying backgrounds, engaging in authentic community projects, and prototyping their next big idea!
Spearheaded by Park Tudor's Interim Head of School, Peter Kraft, the curriculum and experiences of the Institute were designed by a number of innovative curricular leaders at Park Tudor and the Indianapolis educational community: Adrian Pumphrey, Park Tudor Middle School math teacher; former CIA analyst and consultant Mike O'Bryan, who also coaches basketball at Park Tudor; local high school teacher Amy Fix, who works on team-building and social entrepreneurship throughout the Indianapolis area; and myself, Jamey Everett.
The Institute, which is designed to serve between 25 and 40 students annually, begins with a four-day "innovation bootcamp." There, students undergo a rigorous intellectual experience modeled on many of the same problem-solving strategies taught in the CIA. Led by former analyst O'Bryan, the four-day bootcamp requires students to participate in team-building activities focused on innovative mindsets: creativity, resilience, critical thinking and communication. From there, students then learn how to apply Stanford d.School's model of Design Thinking to tackle problems facing the local community--or for those more entrepreneurially-minded, the challenges of starting a new business.
The Innovators Institute is also designed to make a difference in the broader Indianapolis community. To that end, this past summer the Innovators Institute partnered with Nextech's Catapult program, which provides "tech career readiness and civic leadership opportunities for high school juniors and seniors" in traditionally underserved communities. During the Innovators Bootcamp, Catapults and Innovators worked collaboratively to imagine real solutions to design problems, including recruiting strategies for the Catapult program; creating web-based applications to further promote free-lunch programs in the Indianapolis Parks System; and creating peer-to-peer learning networks across Indianapolis schools.
The Institute also connects Indianapolis business and non-profit leaders with high school students at Park Tudor and throughout the city. Beginning this summer, each student will be matched with a local mentor to help develop and guide their innovations. In addition, field trips to local start-ups, lectures from prominent Indianapolis leaders, a day at Indy's Innovation Showcase, and the Institute "business pitch day" will continue to connect students to their broader community.
Enrollment begins in January for Innovators Institute 2017, which will run from July 10-28, and will kick off with Park Tudor hosting community screenings of the movie "Most Likely to Succeed." So who should apply? Any young people—and teachers—who have big ideas and the resiliency to make them happen. Please contact me if you have questions about the program (jeverett@parktudor.org).