Hello VFA world!
For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Joel and I am a 2015 Venture For America Fellow. Here’s everything you need to know about me in 5 bullet points:
- I started two companies in college and I’m obsessed with startups.
- I’m the guy that is way too passionate for his own good but will use that to solve the problems in education.
- I work at an amazing company called Indigo Project that helps schools personalize learning so they can teach their students based on who they are and what they care about.
- I truly love to talk—bad habit I picked up as a philosophy major 😉
- I’m addicted to improv comedy (performing and watching), and of course, coffee.
- Bonus bullet point: This may come as a surprise, but I was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and speak fluent Spanish.
About two months ago, I got an email from Amy Nelson (Managing Director at VFA) about this great opportunity called the Emerging City Champions Fellowship. After about two weeks of staring at the email and contemplating whether or not I wanted to apply, I decided to go for it—and I’m beyond excited to announce that I was accepted into the program!
So what is this program all about?
The Knight Foundation partnered up with 880 Cities to create the Emerging City Champions Fellowship, a program that selects 20 civic innovators from across the nation and gives them $5,000 to implement a project to transform their cities.
Let’s rewind back to about a month ago. I was sitting in my apartment in Boulder, Colorado and I had decided to apply for this awesome opportunity, but had no idea what I wanted to do for my project. So I asked myself, “How can I add the greatest value to the city of Boulder based on my experiences so far with VFA, what I do at Indigo Project, and the things that I care about?” After about 100 Post Its and 10 ideas for potential projects, I finally came up with an idea called The Young Knights Project, a student-led movement to bridge the gap between the city of Boulder and all of its high schools.
So what does that even mean—and how will we actually do it?
For the next year, I will be mentoring 10 high school students in Boulder to help them spearhead the creation of innovative job opportunities for other high school students in the city. We will be partnering with companies and organizations in Boulder to create 30 new internship, job, and volunteer opportunities that are not only innovative, but also relate to the things high school students care about. As we build more partnerships, the 10 student leaders that I mentor will be in charge of bringing those opportunities back to their schools and offering them to their peers.
Imagine you are in high school and you need a summer job. Instead of having to opt into the readily available jobs for high school students, like working in a restaurant or in retail, now you would have access to more meaningful opportunities that are directly related to the things you are interested in. We want to make summer jobs more accessible to go beyond working at Chipotle or Starbucks to include internships in Boulder at places like Google, Galvanize, or possibly even an apprenticeship under a Boulder entrepreneur, professional skydiver, or a heart surgeon. You never know…
The possibilities for the opportunities we create are limitless, and at the end of the day, they will be dictated by the 10 high school student leaders of this movement and their peers. That way, we only create opportunities that align with the students’ strengths and passions, and hopefully that paves the way in engaging our students and the city of Boulder unlike ever before.
As I was brainstorming for this project, I wanted to make sure that it was scalable, as well as sustainable. In order to meet these two requirements, we are also going to build an online platform where companies and organizations will be able to post new opportunities that are only open to high school students in Boulder (hopefully other cities in the future as well!). Any student that is interested will then be able to find those opportunities and apply to them via our platform.
So there you have it. The Young Knights Project.
A movement to connect the city of Boulder with all of its high schools unlike ever before. And by doing that, we will create a space where students will have access to opportunities that they care about.
My next stop is Toronto, where The Knight Foundation and 880 Cities will host a 4-day intensive training in June for the 20 civic innovators. We will be learning all about what it takes to have the greatest impact and then head back to our cities to start building momentum.
If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading. Shoutout to Amy and all of VFA once again for their support. I’m truly excited to represent Venture for America as an Emerging City Champion for the class of 2016.
Let’s do this!
For more info on the Emerging City Champions Fellowship, click here.
For more info on my project, check out this video!