Last month, Future Founders wrapped up another exciting cohort of the Be Your Own Boss Internship, our paid entrepreneurial learning experience for Chicago high school students.
Fun, interactive, and fast-paced, Be Your Own Boss (BYOB) gives high school students from across Chicago the skills they need to take control of their future and succeed in the 21st Century. Over the course of the program, our interns learned the ins and outs of entrepreneurship, engaged with members of the startup community, and applied the skills they learned on an internship project, working with their peers to develop and pitch new business ideas to a panel of esteemed judges.
24 students from 16 different schools participated in this cohort. This group had the very special opportunity to take a field trip to the new Chicago headquarters of Fetch, a longtime supporter of Future Founders. During their visit, students participated in several skill-building games and activities, took a tour (meeting plenty of Fetch employees along the way), and had their questions answered by a panel of Fetch team members, including Co-Founder Tyler Kennedy!
Many of our BYOB Interns mentioned this experience as one of the highlights of the program, with sophomore Feven Mekete sharing that, “…the Fetch panel helped me understand the importance of having a genuine ambition for the work we do, and to always contribute to our fullest extent.”
Here’s a short video of the Be Your Own Boss visit to Fetch:
Future Founders would like to extend our sincerest thanks to Tyler and the whole team at Fetch, including:
We’d also like to thank the amazing set of volunteers who made the rest of this program possible, including:
Many of these volunteers served as judges during our final pitch competition, ultimately declaring one team the winner. And for the first time in program history, the pitch competition winner was also our People’s Choice Award recipient.
Read on to learn more about this team and their prize-winning idea.
Knowted
After discovering that over 77% of the waste produced in schools is paper, this team developed an affordable and environmentally safe notebook designed to limit paper waste.
Congratulations to our winning team, and to all the students who participated in the Be Your Own Boss Internship!
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