Comments on: Next Generation Entrepreneurs Compete At Google HQ

By: neue klingeltöne

neue klingeltöne — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:06:48 +0000

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By: Aaron Matthews

Aaron Matthews — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:02:24 +0000

My question is.. after the story and 31 comments….

When is the one for middle school boys?

By: Pamela Rainey Lawler

Pamela Rainey Lawler — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 22:59:09 +0000

For all of you who are impressed and intrigued by the middle school project and who lament the fact that schools don’t teach these “21st Century skills,” I just wanted to let you know about MicroSociety. We’re headquartered in Philadelphia but our experiential real-world programs for grades K-8 are in schools around the country.
MicroSociety brings education alive for kids by connecting real world activities to the standard curriculum. By creating a society of their own design, children gain hands-on experience in commerce, banking, media, and government ventures. It transforms school into a bustling marketplace.
Kids love the program and most important for educators and parents, grades go up, attendance improves, and social and behavioral problems decrease. Email me if you want more info or just go to our website, http://www.microsociety.org.

By: Marianna Keller

Marianna Keller — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 08:21:31 +0000

Thanks for a great article and comments. I am one of the parent volunteers who has worked with these students, teaching an innovation workshop to stretch their thinking at the beginning of the school year. There are no web businesses, because they are required to work with physical products to track COGS (material and labor). The class teaches teamwork as well as basic business skills. Some girls have gone on to create businesses during high school and one group got their product (a handbook on how to cope with middleschool) published by Chronicle Books (Middle School: How to Deal). If you want your daughter to participate, enroll her in the school (beginning in 6th grade). If you want to be a coach or serve on the panel of VC judges, contact Tracy Green at the school. http://www.girlsms.org. Students also learn how to work with power tools in woodshop, as well as engineering and computer science, humanities and more. I wish this type of education was available to all middle school children.

By: Leon Winer

Leon Winer — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 08:16:31 +0000

Great for the girls! What about the other half of the universe?

By: CKE

CKE — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 01:59:31 +0000

I saw this same thing last year from the Girls Middle School. Last year, some of the teams grossed about $2500 with 100% margins. They donated 20% of profits to a charity of their choosing, and returned the initial investment and 5% profits back to the VCs, and pocketed what was left. Some amazing prior VCs have sat on the investment panels – modern day entreprenuers would kill to have that kind of access. The 7th grade girls’ Powerpoint presentations of their businesses were more colorful and compelling than most real life business startups I’ve seen at venues like SVASE. Google was a generous host. But any Silicon Valley institution (banks, legal, PR, press, etc.) that wants to get in good with the current and future entrepreneurial leaders ought to figure out how to be a sponser for this event.

By: Munir Umrani

Munir Umrani — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:13:55 +0000

I read “Next Generation Entrepreneurs Compete At Google HQ” in TechCrunch and applaud Arrington for posting it. So what if a few die-hards bitch about it. They’ll get over it, or go some place where news about children’s accomplishments isn’t allowed.

By: Curt DeBerg

Curt DeBerg — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:40:07 +0000

Making education relevant and rigorous, while building relationships in the community at large, is accomplished through youth entrepreneurship. Kudos to the Girls’ Middle School Entrepreneurial Night. I would encourage these girls, and any other teenager, to apply for a SAGE-Youth Venture grant (up to $1,000) if they can explain how their project is new, and how they plan to sustain it after the grant funds run out. SAGE stands for Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship (http://www.csuchico.edu/sage). Students must be between ages 12-20. If they are high school students, they also have the opportunity to present in the SAGE tournament at the end of April, in Los Angeles. Judges there are also successful entrepreneurs and business leaders. If you would like to be a judge, let me know!

By: Profy.Com

Profy.Com — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 13:31:20 +0000

Entrepreneur Night At Google…

Street-corner lemonade stands are sooo yesterday. So says Google, which hosted an Entrepreneur Night for 3-5th grade middle schoolers (girls only) on January 28th, and yes, there were cash bonuses involved.
Children are naturally curious and often quit…

By: Vivian Wu

Vivian Wu — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 05:36:00 +0000

Thanks for all the comments! And thanks also to Tricia (who was one of the event coordinators) for her note highlighting Girls’ Middle School as there appears to have been some confusion that this was an official Google event. Google was in fact kind enough to host Entrepreneurial Night, but this is a program run by the parents, teachers and volunteers of the school for their 7th grade students. No, there weren’t any web startups, but there were teams that set up websites, and I am confident that these girls will be the pioneers of Web 3.0 and Web 4.0 before long!

By: Patricia

Patricia — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 02:34:43 +0000

Very cool!!! It’s great to encourage girls to be entrepreneurs! Thanks for the post!

By: Tricia Kellison

Tricia Kellison — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 00:13:28 +0000

The URL of the school featured here (The Girls’ Middle School in Mountain View, CA) is girlsms.org. In addition to the 7th-grade Entrepreneurail Program, they also teach other non-traditional subjects (such as engineering and computer science) to young women.

By: Dallas Freeman

Dallas Freeman — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 23:31:17 +0000

Great idea, I wish Australia had some leading businesses doing the same thing (if we have, then I haven't heard about it yet). One thing we are all scared of is starting a business, but it all comes down to planning and confidence. You can sell anything, even the first thing sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer. It's just a matter of getting people's awareness of the product and the way you market the product. I would be keen to take my kids to America just to have the experience of this great event.

By: Lauren Kwan

Lauren Kwan — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 22:26:29 +0000

This is a great initiative! Giving youth exposure to options that are aligned with their interests, and the tools to realize these goals is an important part of education. More schools, companies and organizations should be engaged in efforts like this so that we can collectively create an education system that trains our young people to be good citizens of the 21st century. Not to mention that their creative ideas might just inspire us too.

By: mente

mente — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:51:26 +0000

Google wants to study girls in IT business? Interesting, what will be next

By: JOhn Rizzo

JOhn Rizzo — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:45:16 +0000

Empowering the youth of our nation with the ideals of entrepreneurship is what will give our children a competitive advantage against the world that they certainly need. I work with the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship and it seems as though our government will never fully understand the implications educating our students about it can have. Entrepreneurs willing share anything they can to help, other business people just tell you to get a job

By: Nita Singh

Nita Singh — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:38:56 +0000

Love it! I believe it’s never too early to start getting young girls excited about entrepreneurship and business. I hope to see more schools and companies continue to integrate events and programs focused on developing tomorrow’s women leaders and innovators.

By: Don MacAskill

Don MacAskill — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:08:52 +0000

What a fantastic idea. Kudos to Google and all the other firms involved.

I wish every school offered a program like this… talk about learning useful skills instead of things like how to write in cursive…

Don

By: Allen Sligar

Allen Sligar — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:52:15 +0000

@TC Comment Haters

Take a flipping chill pill….its a fun competition that encourages the entrepenurial spirit and increases confidence in Kids….sheesh sometimes TC commenters are like a rabid bunch of whining banshees….

Anyhow, aside from this being a pretty cool event, I’d like to read more guest articles along this vien on TC (kind of human interest story/tech industry/other perspectives) good stuff….

By: David P

David P — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:14:43 +0000

Must be a slow news day… Cute though.

By: Dan F.

Dan F. — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 19:11:36 +0000

Google is a forward-thinking company. It reminds us how great this country is and how great ideas can come from anywhere. I applaud Google.
Thanks to TechCrunch for posting this story.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 18:49:27 +0000

even though the article is not related to web technologies, I think it’s great that TechCrunch covered this topic. These are the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. Thank you for sharing the info.

By: I thought techcrunch covered web startups?

I thought techcrunch covered web startups? — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 18:20:02 +0000

this would have been a wonderful article on the local newspaper. I dont see the connection with techcrunch?

By: Pankaj

Pankaj — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 18:06:10 +0000

Surprising, it didn’t show up on Google’s official blog…:)
Thanks for sharing anyways…

By: arlene

arlene — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 17:39:39 +0000

I got a middle school girl. Who do we contact to get them into the competition next year?

thanks.