What is the name of your organization?
VentureLab
What is the name of your solution?
NextGen ESTEAM
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
VentureLab combines entrepreneurial learning and STEM education to empower youth to achieve their full potential.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Austin, TX, USA
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
USA
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
VentureLab addresses the opportunity gap in preparing youth—particularly girls, historically marginalized students, and economically disadvantaged communities—for a future where 65% of today’s students will work in roles that don’t yet exist. Traditional education systems fail to foster entrepreneurial mindsets, creative problem-solving, and resilience, disproportionately impacting marginalized groups: women hold just 24% of STEM jobs globally, and all-female invented patents constituted only 10.9% of issued patents in 2022. Middle school is a pivotal intervention point, as students begin disengaging from rigid academic structures while forming identities and aspirations.
Scale of the Problem
Local/National Impact: The pandemic exacerbated existing inequities, with under-resourced schools lacking tools to reignite engagement.
Global Urgency: STEM and entrepreneurial skills gaps perpetuate systemic wealth disparities—women earn $0.83 for every dollar men earn in STEM fields, while racial wealth gaps persist across tech and innovation sectors.
Key Contributing Factors
Educator Limitations: Frontline educators frequently face budget constraints, inadequate training, and curricula misaligned with future-ready skills.
Structural Barriers: Girls and underserved youth receive less encouragement in risk-taking and creative leadership, cementing limited career aspirations.
By targeting middle schoolers through evidence-based, learner-centered programming, VentureLab disrupts this cycle, equipping 10–14-year-olds with the confidence and tools to reimagine their potential.
What is your solution?
VentureLab provides a STEM-focused entrepreneurship curriculum to K-12 educators and caregivers so that youth learn the mindsets and skills needed to prepare them for future careers. Entrepreneurial mindsets include: Embracing Failure, Growth Mindset, Courage, Persistence and Grit, Opportunity-seeking, Problem-solving, Curiosity, Optimism, Resourcefulness, Adaptability, and Empathy.
Each entrepreneurial mindset and skill connects to STEM subjects through guided activities. With 36 million jobs impacted by AI in the coming decades, students must develop familiarity and confidence with new technology at an earlier age (Lindner 2023). VentureLab offers curriculum and resources at no cost to qualifying schools and organizations to ensure equitable access. Programs include:
Idea to Pitch (English and Spanish), which allows students to apply their passions and strengths, develop their solution into a business, and pitch their idea.
Career Exploration and Innovation empowers youth in middle school (particularly girls and underrepresented students) to explore and discover career opportunities.
The Spark Startup Mentorship & Materials Program helps students start and scale their business, including seed funding for materials, four months of mentorship and guided activities.
Entrepreneurial Mindset Course for Educators, available online or as an in-person workshop, provides educators with the training and knowledge they need to inspire an entrepreneurial mindset in students.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
The primary beneficiaries are K-12 students, whom the organization reaches by serving schools, educators, community, and non-profit youth development programs. Approximately 75% of the schools and organizations that use VentureLab curriculum apply for and receive need-based scholarships, serving lower socio-economic youth in under-resourced communities. VentureLab also designed curriculum with girls in mind because girls are underserved in STEM fields, and in 2022, all-female invented patents constituted only about 10.9% of issued patents according to Axios.
VentureLab is a national organization working in partnership with community-based organizations to understand the unique barriers and opportunities of its youth and continually adapts to serve the students in greatest need of support.
VentureLab programs are designed to be easily scaled to new environments. By empowering educators, VentureLab ensures that classroom-level needs are core considerations, allowing the program to adapt to new classroom settings seamlessly. By training educators to deploy the program, VentureLab ensures the programs are grassroots in nature and sustainable as long as schools and educators wish to provide them to students. By taking a grassroots, community-driven approach, we ensure that the needs of students and educators drive the program and that new schools and communities can easily deploy this programming.