During my final quarter at the MIT Sloan School of Management, I conducted an independent study about social entrepreneurship in the education sector, primarily focused on current players and existing opportunities in the space. I collaborated with education non-profit Noble Impact to determine how the high school education system might be transformed by greater involvement from communities and businesses. My research entailed three stages: Internet research, phone and in-person interviews with key players at non-profits and businesses, and creation of a final report, which you’ll find attached to this email. My research was focused on four questions: - How are high school students currently engaged in career development? - Which businesses are most engaged in K-12 education? How and why? - What scalable opportunities exist to solve the skills gap between the classroom and workforce? - What should I do after MIT Sloan to have the greatest impact in education? The final report covers my key findings for the first two questions – insights were pulled from interviews with recruiters, students, non-profit leaders, and corporate giving professionals. The report also covers potential opportunities that Noble Impact or other organizations could implement to improve career-oriented programming offered to high school students. Lastly, the report gives a very brief insight into where my head’s at for post-Sloan plans. INSPIRATION FOR THIS PROJECT I was inspired to conduct this project for two key reasons: Education has been a life-changer for me, and Noble Impact’s work inspired me to think harder about how I could contribute to improving education in America. As a first-generation college (and graduate) student, I’ve observed and relished in the difference furthering my education has made in my life, as compared with the trajectories of my siblings, cousins, and elders. Education not only pulled me out of poverty, but it also opened my mind to the many ways in which I could l contribute to the world. Last year, I was invited to judge Noble Impact’s Arkansas High School Startup Weekend, and I was amazed by what the students were capable of producing: Full product prototypes, pitch presentations, and compelling arguments for why their business ideas were important. At the time, I didn’t consider how I might contribute to their experience beyond my duty as a judge, but as my second year of Sloan began to wrap up, I reflected upon my two years in business school and realized that my time in Little Rock with those motivated, talented students was the most inspiring time of my MBA. After starting a dialogue with Noble Impact CEO Eric Wilson, I decided I couldn’t end my semester without a deep dive into the education world. And thus, this project was born.

1. CAREER DEVELOPMENT
IN THE HIGH SCHOOL SETTING
2015

2. INTRODUCTION
Education changed my
life. I’m a first generation
college student with a
passion for giving back.
1
Judging Arkansas High
School Startup Weekend
was the most inspiring
moment of my MBA.
2
I am driven to help solve
the skills gap that’s
currently unaddressed in
K-12 education.
3
MISSION & PREMISE WHY THIS STUDY?

3. INTRODUCTION
ERICA
SWALLOW
RESEARCHER
ERIC
WILSON
Led independent study
research, interviews,
and report production
CHRISTIAN
CATALINI
CHIEF SHERPA
Provided continuous
advice and expertise on
project scope and mission
ACADEMIC ADVISOR
Lent entrepreneurial
lens to study as MIT
Sloan academic liaison
THE TEAM THAT MADE IT HAPPEN

4. 1
2
3
4
How are high school students currently
engaged in career development?
Which businesses are most engaged in K-12
education? How and why?
What scalable opportunities exist to solve the
skills gap between the classroom and workforce?
What should I do after MIT Sloan to have the
greatest impact in education?
INTRODUCTION
METHODOLOGY
KEY QUESTIONS

5. 02 INTERVIEWS 03 SYNTHESIS01 INTERNET RESEARCH
INTRODUCTION
METHODOLOGY PROCESS FLOW
• Identified 150+ businesses,
40+ non-profits, 20+ grants,
and dozens of influencers,
resources and events
focused on innovative
education models
• Contacted and set up
meetings with key
change-makers
• Conducted 50+ phone and
in-person interviews with
leaders from relevant
organizations
• Collected 60+ pages of
interview insights
• Compiled findings into
digestible and informative
presentation
• Discussed programming
ideas with local high school
students
• Proposed next steps in
final project meeting with
Noble Impact team

6. How are high school
students currently engaged
in career development?
01.

7. 01. EXTRACURRICULARS
Clubs, extracurricular activities,
and team sports are the most
prevalent venue for career skills
development in American high
schools.
(e.g. hackBCA, hackEDU, MIT
Launch Clubs)
02. CLASS CONTENT
Limited content exists to
engage students in career-
focused learning, but these
options range from individual
courses to charter schools with
new models.
(e.g. EAST Initiative, Noble
Impact, Big Picture Learning,
Jacht Ad Lab, High Tech High)
03. COMPETITIONS
Students are increasingly
competing in national skills-
focused competitions to win
internship opportunities.
(e.g. AT&T Campus Brand
Challenge, PepsiCo
Meeting of the Minds,
Technovation Challenge)
04. TRAINING/INTERNSHIPS
Because schools lack career
exposure opportunities, non-
profit and for-profit programs
are popping up to fill the void.
(e.g. YearUp, INROADS,
LearnServe International,
GEN*Z)
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
4 AREAS OF CURRENT ENGAGEMENT

8. CLUBS & TEAMS THE USUAL SUSPECTS
“Project work
and community
involvement show us the
type of skills that a student has
learned, how they operate on a
team, the interests they have. We
look for how students spend their free
time. If they weren't building, what
were they doing? There's a lot you can
learn from traveling around the world,
being an athlete, playing an
instrument.”
- University recruiter,
Tech firm
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

9. ZACH
LATTA
Student-run organizations attempt to fill the skills and interest gap by offering extracurricular programming for
students interested in developing career-related skills. Coding and entrepreneurship are budding areas. Two of the
fastest growing organizations in the country — both less than a year old — are hackEDU and MIT Launch Clubs.
LAURIE
STACH
hackEDU is a
community of
programming clubs
with 1,300 students
at 38 high schools
around the country.
The non-profit’s
vision is “to bring a
coding club where
students can build
things (and learn to
build things) with
other like-minded
students to every
high school in the
country.”
MIT Launch Clubs
is is a nationwide
high school
accelerator club
network adapted
from MIT's Launch
summer program.
In one year,
summer alums
launched 30 clubs
across the globe
and competed in a
digital pitch
competition with
winners pitching
at MIT.
EXTRACURRICULAR CLUBS FILL THE GAP
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
CLASS OF 2016
(TESTED OUT IN 2014)
FOUNDER &
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

10. Summer Launch content is
being developed for digital
distribution, so club leaders
need not memorize and
deliver the full 4-week
program themselves.
DIGITAL CONTENT
Students network via
Facebook and Twitter
groups to connect with
fellow high school
entrepreneurs across the
world.
SOCIAL NETWORK
Clubs are launched by MIT
Launch Summer alums,
who’ve taken the 4-week
high school entrepreneurship
program.
ALUMNI LEADERS
Students are not limited by
geographic location, but
instead enter the Clubs
pitch contest via YouTube
for a chance to pitch at the
MIT finals.
YOUTUBE CONTEST
MIT LAUNCH CLUBS EMPOWERS STUDENTS
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

11. hackBCA is a 24-hour long high
school hackathon hosted at Bergen
County Academies in New Jersey.
• 400 attendees from 5 states in first
year; 500 attendees in second year
• 60% of attendees’ first hackathon
• 50% of attendees new to coding
• Launched and managed by high
school students
HACKATHONS ARE EXPANDING
TO HIGH SCHOOLS, TOO
LET’S HACK.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

12. EXTRACURRICULARS KEY TRAITS
01. STUDENT-RUN
(+) Address needs students care about
(+) Enable students to lead their peers
(-) Unstable, due to student turnover
(-) Lack funding and resources
02. OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
(+) Engage students in their interests
(+) Break the “curriculum” mold
(-) Inhibit students without means
03. ADAPTABLE
(+) Not regulated by state requirements
(+) Customizable across schools
(+) Distributed leadership enables scale
(-) Tough to control for quality
Above: Paragould High School Electric Vehicle Team,
national champions. AKA: Where I learned how to build,
work on a team, and present.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

13. EXTRACURRICULAR OUTCOMES
AMY SORTO
ELIZABETH HS ’16 (NY)
CodeNow (high school coding
workshop), Girls Who Code,
and NCWIT Aspirations alum.
Founded hackEDU coding club
at her school and is a freelance
designer/developer and
COVERGIRL Girls Who Code
Ambassador.
JACOB JOHNSTON
GREENBRIER HS + ASMSA ’15 (AR)
ARHSSW & MIT Launch
Summer alum. Interning at MIT
Launch this summer before
enrolling in Babson College.
Currently CMO of summer
programs aggregator startup
LandMe. Award winner at
Arkansas FBLA State
Conference and Arkansas
Science and Engineering Fair.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

14. Individual courses and entire schools are
reimagining how students learn:
• Big Picture Learning’s apprenticeship and
mentorship model teaches through hands-on
work in the student’s passion area. (e.g. a for
skateboarding enthusiast does a skate park
engineering apprenticeship).
• High Tech High uses project-based learning to
foster collaboration and deeper learning of key
concepts.
• EAST Initiative empowers students to solve
community problems using professional-grade
technologies and software, contributing 1.5
million service hours annually in Arkansas alone.
REIMAGINING
CLASS CONTENT
MODELING LIFE
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

15. PROJECT-BASED LEARNING KEY TRAITS
01. ENGAGING LEARNING STYLE
(+) Many schools report increased attendance and retention
(+) Students get better idea of “reason” behind learning
(+) Community gets involved (mentorship, internship, shows)
(-) Takes longer to let students “discover” the answer
(-) Teachers aren’t typically trained for facilitation
02. TEACHER AS FACILITATOR
(+) Projects “flip the classroom,” putting students in charge
(+) Teachers can focus on student needs, not content delivery
(-) Can be disorienting for newcomers
03. BETTER OUTCOMES
(+) PBL schools are graduating more students
(+) PBL students are attending college at higher rates
(-) Implementation and measurement can be intimidating
Above: EAST Initiative Summer Seminar for
facilitators at Ouachita Baptist University.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

16. CLASS CONTENT OUTCOMES
SYDNEY BRAZIL
ESTEM HS ’16 (AR)
Noble Impact alum. Founder of
donut hole company The Hole
Thing and Assistant to the
Director of the Little Rock Film
Festival. Active community
member as as MC for Innovate
to Educate and performer for
Hot Springs Children's Dance
Theatre.
NIKHIL GOYAL
SYOSSET HS ’13 (NJ)
Author of “One Size Does Not
Fit All: A Student’s Assessment
of School” and forthcoming
“Schools On Trial: How
Freedom and Democracy Can
Fix Our Educational
Malpractice.” Current freshman
at Goddard College (VT),
working on 2nd book. Goddard
is based on a student self-
directed, mentored system.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

17. COMPETITIONS ARE A GROWING TREND
TECHNOVATION AT&T PEPSICO
AT&T CAMPUS BRAND
CHALLENGE
Competition: Design an
integrated marketing campaign
for AT&T.
Prize: $3,000, HQ tour, meetings
with AT&T executives,
management development
training, career opportunities
PEPSICO MEETING
OF THE MINDS
Competition: Create a video
explaining a campaign idea that
connects PepsiCo with up-and-
coming musicians.
Prize: Paid summer internship
($10,000), meeting with CMO
Frank Cooper III
TECHNOVATION
CHALLENGE
Competition: Develop a mobile
app prototype that solves a real
problem in your community. For
girls 10-18, mentor for each team.
Prize: $10,000 seed funding and
a trip to World Pitch in San
Francisco
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

18. COMPETITIONS KEY TRAITS
01. PROJECT-BASED, SOLUTION-DRIVEN
(+) Students launch real solutions for real problems
(+) Often team-based and collaborative
(+) Participants have “something to show” for their effort
(+) Brands get a chance to see potential talent at work
(-) High barrier for participation, only the most engaged enter
02. NATIONAL OR WORLDWIDE
(+) Not limited to geographic areas, inclusive of all
(+) Wider “recruiting” net for involved brands
(-) Can entail higher costs for effective execution
03. AWARDS-FOCUSED
(+) Drives students to compete and complete
(+) Awards often entail continued learning experience(s)
(-) Only a limited few can win these experiences
Above: Two brand competitions I won
while in college: CosmoGirl Project 2024
and Caples Student Campaign οf the Year.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

19. COMPETITIONS OUTCOMES
JAKE BUNGER
U. OF NEBRASKA ’16 (NE)
Winner of PepsiCo's Meeting
of the Minds national marketing
competition and account
manager at student-led ad firm
Jacht Ad Lab (college course).
Interning at PepsiCo HQ this
summer, joining the company’s
new content production house,
Pepsi Content Studio.
MARILU DUQUE
DELTONA HS ’16 (FL)
Winner of multiple competitions
(MIT Dream It.Code It. Win It.,
El Hackathon, Ashoka's
Catapult Incubator, iD Tech
Camp, NCWIT Aspirations).
Founded STEMLatina.com and
Google:SiSTEMa. Also Ann
Taylor ANNPower Fellow,
Microsoft teen reviewer, and
Toyota teen ambassador.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

20. TRAINING/INTERNSHIPS ARE RARE, BUT EXIST
Throughout discovery
interviews, I spoke with a
number of organizations
running career
development training
programs for high school
students. Mostly non-
profits.
High school
internships, on the
other hand, tend to be
one-off occurrences for
top performing students.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

21. TRAINING/INTERNSHIPS KEY TRAITS
01. SOCIAL GOOD-FOCUSED
(+) Training programs are often non-profits, focused on
at-risk or underserved youth
(+/-) Programs don’t focus on value-add with projects, but
rather skills development (may be too “soft”)
(-) May not entail full-on “real life work experience”
02. UNEXPLORED SPACE
(+) Lots of space for innovation
(-) High school internships are seen as a risky use of resources
(-) High schoolers need greater guidance (and thus more attention
from managers, who are typically untrained to accommodate)
(-) Lack of opportunities due to legal constraints
03. COLLEGE-LEVEL
(+) High school achievers are highly lauded when they emerge
(-) Most opportunities only begin at college level
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

22. TRAINING/INTERNSHIPS OUTCOMES
SEJAL MAKHEJA
HOLTON-ARMS SCHOOL ’17 (MD)
LearnServe International (after-
school entrepreneurship and
public service training program)
alum. Founded The Elevator
Project. Joining new
LearnServe summer incubator
to further her non-profit.
Launching program to help
fellow high schoolers find their
passion.
AHMED DIABATE
WACHUSETT HS ’13 (MA)
INROADS alum. Interned
during freshman year of
college at MetLife. Founded
Inner Circle, a musician+fan
engagement app. Now Director
of Innovation for Era of the
Engineer, a movement created
by Grammy-nominated audio
engineer, DJ, and producer
Young Guru.
JARED ZONERAICH
BERGEN CO. ACADEMIES ’15 (NJ)
Interned in engineering at tech
startup Newlio his freshman
summer and was Warby
Parker's first tech intern during
sophomore year. Landed
Google and eBay internships,
but couldn't be hired due to
legal constraints for minors.
Founded hackBCA.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

23. HOW DO WE GET
STUDENTS CLOSER TO
CAREER-ORIENTED
LEARNING?
CREATE A PROGRAM THAT MEETS THE NEEDS
OF BOTH STUDENTS AND BUSINESSES.

24. Which businesses are most
engaged in K-12 education?
How and why?
02.

25. COMPANIES HAVE
THREE KEY MOTIVATIONS
CSR
FOUNDATION GIVING
AND VOLUNTEERISM
MARKETING
TEENS ARE A TARGET
MARKET FOR MANY BRANDS
RECRUITING
PIPELINE DEVELOPMENT
FOR YOUNG TALENT

26. FOUNDATIONS ARE KEY SUPPORTERS
ENGAGED BUSINESSES
MASTERCARD WALMART INTEL
WALMART FOUNDATION
Directs charitable giving to four core
areas: Hunger Relief & Healthy
Eating, Sustainability, Women's
Economic Empowerment, and
Career Opportunity via local, state,
and national grants. Recently
invested $1 million grant to send
300 veterans with disabilities to
entrepreneurship bootcamp (part of
a $40 million commitment).
INTEL FOUNDATION
Highly active investor in
technology education. Focused on
educational opportunities and
quality of life improvements, its
funds often go towards STEM
innovation, women and girls
empowerment, and underserved
youth programs. Often the largest
logo on youth competition or
hackathon sponsor pages.
MASTERCARD FOUNDATION
Has supported entrepreneurship
education programs since 2001.
Recently invested $1 million
(March 2015) to Network for
Teaching Entrepreneurship to
develop Global Girls
Entrepreneurship Project and
sustain current NFTE programs in
U.S. and internationally, on top of
$1 million invested in 2011.

27. ENGAGED BUSINESSES
FOUNDATIONS INVESTING IN EDUCATION

28. 1
2
3
4
A foundation is a non-profit entity endowed or
contributed to by the parent corporation.
Foundations organize, focus, track, and
publicize a corporation’s philanthropic efforts.
Charitable focus areas often relate directly to
the corporation’s strategic interests and boards
are composed of company officials.
Though, foundations must follow laws
governing private foundations and public
charities (not the case with corporate direct
giving programs.
ENGAGED BUSINESSES
WHAT DO CORPORATE
FOUNDATIONS DO?
Above: Hive Learning Network,
a Mozilla Foundation initiative

29. ENGAGED BUSINESSES
• Incentive to develop future
workforce talent
• Tendency to serve
underrepresented groups
(e.g. minorities, girls,
impoverished)
• Interest in tracking outcomes
through to job market to
continually support past
beneficiaries
CAREER-READY COMMUNITY
EDUCATION IS A TOP PRIORITY
• Giving is often focused
around particular communities
• Foundations strive to improve
the immediate communities in
which their parent companies
operate
• Grant-seekers should look to
find foundations with strong
interests in the communities
the non-profit is helping

30. ENGAGED BUSINESSES
01. FOUNDATIONS INVEST
• In K-12 and college education
• In young adult continued education
• In skills development training programs
02. COMPANIES HIRE
• Based on resumes and interviews
• With little knowledge of whether they’ve
invested in that person’s education
03. BOTH WANT MORE
• Foundations want to know their investment
outcomes
• Companies want to further support students
they’ve made investments in previously
COMPANIES DESIRE AN EXTENDED
HIRING FUNNEL
INROADS
STUDENT YEARUP
INTERN
ENTRY
HIRE
HIGH SCHOOL
COLLEGE
GRAD
Foundations and corporations desire a
concerted partnership towards developing
tomorrow’s workforce.

31. I
ENGAGED BUSINESSES
RECRUITERS DON’T HAVE
ENOUGH RESOURCES
“If your business has endless resources, it totally makes sense to get involved with high
school recruiting. But internships are often just a way to assess potential hires for post-
graduate positions. That’s the ‘we only talk to college juniors’ mentality.
There are programs that take a few steps back and look at freshmen and sophomores in
college. But this is a ‘junior internship’ of sorts and takes more management resources and
hand-holding.
Of course you can take this all the way back to high school, but it becomes a challenge of
resources.”
- COLLEGE RECRUITER
TECH COMPANY

32. ENGAGED BUSINESSES
• College recruiting is an indicator of
where high school opportunities will
lie
• College hackathons are prime
engineering recruiting grounds
• High school hackathons are
becoming college admissions and
coding school recruiting spots
• Recruiters want to see talent at
work before committing
• This creates unintentional learning
opportunities for students
RECRUITING IS BECOMING EXPERIENTIAL
SHOW ME
Above: The Codecademy engineering team at HackMIT
with top Codecademy user, “splitpeasoup.”

33. ENGAGED BUSINESSES
MARKETING: A VALUABLE MOTIVATION
02 BRAND STUDIES 03 SYNTHESIS01 BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH
• Youth marketing agencies
conduct ongoing
ethnographic research to
understand teen behaviors
• Ex: Fuse Marketing’s white
paper: "30 Second Insights:
Teen Values Signify It’s
Time for Brands to Develop
a Snapchat Strategy” and
MRY’s "Class of 2015”
social media and tech study
(meet2015.com)
• Brands come to youth
marketing agencies with
specific questions: “Why
aren’t millennials buying
Harley Davidson
motorcycles?”
• Agencies engage youth
consumers in research
• Outcome is often
messaging shift, but
sometimes product remix
• Tech company involvement
in college hackathons is
sometimes marketing-
driven
• Hackathon attendees are
current and future users of
the sponsors’ products
(e.g. APIs)

34. ENGAGED BUSINESSES
YOUTH MARKETING COMPONENTS
01. FOCUS GROUPS
(+) Real-life interaction with consumers
(+) Chance to see students react to others’ thoughts
(-) Stringent legal guidelines regarding time and setup
(-) Inability to revisit particular questions or individual participants
02. ONLINE SURVEYS
(+) Massive distribution
(+) Ability to collect and analyze data
(-) Lacks personal touch
03. ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDIES
(+) Ability to study users in their home environments
(-) Costly and resource-intensive
Above: A look inside marketing agency
MRY. Captioned “Creatives being
creatives” on MRY’s Instagram.
BOTTOM LINE…
(+) Agencies are interested in having ongoing, integrated
connections with young people (e.g. through product dev, launch)
(-) Focus on marketing and value-extraction may deplete
educational value to students

35. ENGAGED BUSINESSES
FINDING THE OVERLAP IN NEEDS
STUDENTS BUSINESSES
• CSR: Foundation giving and
volunteerism
• Recruiting: Pipeline
development for young talent
• Marketing: Teens are a target
market for many brands
• Exposure: Access to
businesses and their leaders
• Experience: Knowledge and
development of skills that are
valuable for their futures
• Opportunity: Early career
options besides retail and
service jobs

36. HOW DO WE MARRY THE
NEEDS OF STUDENTS
AND BUSINESSES?
PARTNER WITH FOUNDATIONS FOR SUPPORT
AND COMPANIES FOR MENTORSHIP
TO OFFER LEARNING-FOCUSED PROGRAMS.

37. What scalable
opportunities exist to solve
the skills gap between the
classroom and workforce?
03.

38. OPPORTUNITIES
01. STUDENT-CENTRIC
Involves the “user” in program design,
focusing on customizable solutions and
individual needs and goals
02. OPEN SOURCE
Project-based and open to the public, so
that users can build portfolios and gain
insights from the community
03. SUPPORTIVE/STRUCTURED
Structured just enough to provide a
platform for students to dive into their own
passions and projects
MARKERS OF A GOOD PROGRAM
STUDENT-
CENTRIC
OPEN
SOURCE
STRUCT-
URED
SELF-
DIRECTED
04. SELF-DIRECTED/EMPOWERING
Student-led, so that students learn how to
lead, plan, and execute upon their ideas

39. OPPORTUNITIES
KEY SETBACKS FOR EMPLOYERS
“Our foundation does
community outreach, and I’m
looking to parallel our college
program for high schools. The
students’ content base is limited,
though — so I haven’t figured out yet
if they will be productive contributors
for the company. Also, I have to think
about compliance. And structuring
special sessions and documents for
underaged talent.”
- Campus programs recruiter,
Tech firm
01 LEGAL ISSUES 02 LACK OF STRUCTURE
03 LIMITED RESOURCES 04 TARGETED GIVING

40. • Build out services for businesses to offer
high school internships (e.g. legal advice,
talented student pool, programming)
• Mentor students on the basics of
business to get them to the interview (e.g.
resume writing, LinkedIn building,
interviewing skills)
• Build a database of businesses that offer
internships
• Provide continual content to both parties
to maintain the network
OPPORTUNITIES
HIGH SCHOOL
INTERNSHIP PROGRAM
CONCEPT

41. • Aim to scale Noble Impact’s current class
content to a wider audience by creating
an online course (e.g. EdX, Udemy)
• Create content to teach educators how
to lead this new way of teaching
• Produce modular content for use in the
classroom and by students when they’re
learning at their own pace
• Hold regional training seminars to
further support educators on this new
method and style of content
OPPORTUNITIES
NOBLE IMPACT
ONLINE COURSE
CONCEPT

42. • Support students across the state and/or
nation in creating Noble Impact
entrepreneurship clubs
• Provide structured on-boarding
documentation for getting a club started
• Create a social network for students
across the nation to learn from each other
(e.g. Facebook group)
• Invite club leaders to Little Rock for a
seminar on leading a club and making
impact in their local community
• Support leaders throughout school year
for programming ideas and statewide/
national contests and programs
(e.g. ARHSSW)
OPPORTUNITIES
STUDENT-LED CLUBS
CONCEPT

43. • Gather collaborators in NWA and
Central Arkansas to host students within
their businesses for day
• Build a program of office tours, lunches
with young entrepreneurs, executive
talks, training sessions, and student-to-
entrepreneur problem-solving exercises,
pitch competitions
• Provide transportation and organization
for students, so that all students can
partake
• Use Meetup Everywhere to empower
others to create regional events, and
stream talks online, so all can be involved
OPPORTUNITIES
HIGH SCHOOL
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
WEEK
CONCEPT

44. • Expand current Institute business
solutions competition and i2e education
solutions competition to award top
students with internships, executive
meetings, and career opportunities
• Scope projects so that they are
manageable by high school students and
valuable for businesses (biggest
challenge right now)
• Partner with foundations to develop this
program and provide learning-centric
experiences for students
OPPORTUNITIES
INSTITUTE & I2E
INTERNSHIPS
CONCEPT

45. • Create a student board that operates
like the Board of Directors to direct Noble
Impact programming
• Practice what we preach, in that student
voice is the most important element in
this conversation
• Choose a set board for each school
year, so that students gain valuable
experience as contributors and leaders,
but also give others students a chance to
get involved
OPPORTUNITIES
NOBLE IMPACT
STUDENT BOARD
CONCEPT

46. • Noble Impact must become a thought
leader in the education space in order to
make the biggest impact possible
• The blog should be a destination for the
latest discussions on education innovation
• Noble leaders should be contributing to
national publications about the future of
education
• Noble students and their accomplishments
should be the center of the conversation
• Every event/program Noble holds should be
written about by Noble (what it was and
what it means for students)
OPPORTUNITIES
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
CONCEPT

47. What should I do after MIT
Sloan to have the greatest
impact in education?
04.

48. I HAVE THREE KEY VALUES
IMPACT
AM I MAKING A
DIFFERENCE IN THE
WORLD?
GROWTH
AM I BECOMING A
BETTER PERSON
THROUGH MY WORK?
PASSION
AM I SPENDING MY
TIME IN WAYS THAT
IGNITE MY SOUL?

49. HOW DO I STAY TRUE TO
MY VALUES AND LIVE A
MEANINGFUL LIFE?
JOIN A TEAM OF PEOPLE
WHO ARE CHANGING THE MOST IMPORTANT
SYSTEM IN AMERICA: OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM.

50. THANK YOU!
{^‿^}

51. 1
2
3
4
hi@ericaswallow.com
linkedin.com/ericaswallow
870.565.5200
@ericaswallow
If this presentation has inspired an idea, jogged a memory, or compelled you to reach out for any other reason,
please do get in touch! My contact information is below, and I’d be ecstatic to hear from you about how we can
improve the education system.
APPENDIX
CONTACT INFORMATION