Year of Grant: 2017

Location: USA

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Let’s Innovate Though Education ( LITE) was founded in 2013 by Hardy Farrow, a teacher who saw that his Economics students were disengaged by the lack of real-world skill building they were receiving in school. In response, they designed a training model that challenges 17 to 25 year-old students to develop entrepreneurial ideas around marketplace problems.

This 8-year model is comprised by three programs. The first one looks to build entrepreneurial skills in high school students. The second one seeks to match college students with high-growth companies through internships and the third one supports 23 to 25 year-old post-college alumni with seed capital and coaching. 

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The main objective of this project is to build entrepreneurial skills and launch entrepreneurial ideas of 75 high school students. This project will support two cohorts of high school students over a one year period. Students are selected from around 25 schools in Memphis. Each cohort will attend a 6-month entrepreneurial program and the course will be split into several sections: ideation, pivoting, customer feedback, marketing, budgeting, implementation and pitching. Students are taught financial literacy skills to manage their own budget and implement their plan. They also receive one-to-one coaching and, by the end of the six months, pitch their idea in front of an audience of around 500 people.

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Recently, LITE was named one of the 20 ideas that can change the world by Forbes Magazine and Farrow received the National Innovation Award from Teach for America.