Photo: Startup Summer mixer participants, including startup company founders and placement partners at The Idea Center at Miami Dade College. Credit: Teach For America-Miami-Dade.

Kiesha Moodie is managing director, alumni and community impact, at Teach For America-Miami-Dade, which Knight Foundation supports to attract and retain talented people and expand opportunity in South Florida. 

In 2014 Teach For America-Miami-Dade (TFA), in partnership with Knight Foundation and The LAB Miami, launched Startup Summer. I wrote about the 11 TFA corps members and alumni who worked as entrepreneurial interns with nine Miami-based startups here. At the time I knew great things were happening in those six weeks, and I dreamed big about the future, but I had no idea just how awesome things would get.

The Startup Summer interns became incredibly inspired by their entrepreneurial experiences, and that, coupled with their long-term commitment to education and equity, led down some exciting paths.

Some of our 2014 Startup Summer interns have gone on to found their own startups that focus on innovative opportunities for students:

• Daniel Applewhite founded Agora, connecting students and travelers to worldwide cultural experiences.

• Daniel Dickey and Nicole Azzi were part of the team that co-founded Miami Exploration Academy, a summer school for student enrichment.

• Diego Lugo received a full-time position with Miami’s Wyncode Academy and is now campus director, building out a strategy to support and expand Wyncode campuses across the country, equipping more and more students with the coding knowledge they need to remain competitive in today’s and tomorrow’s job markets. Most recently, Wyncode announced that it would be providing scholarships to nine Miami-Dade County residents from low-income neighborhoods with Knight Foundation support.

The Startup Summer interns described their experience as transformational. Their classroom experiences were formative in helping them identify gaps where they could expand educational and leadership opportunities for their students, or access to services in the communities that we partner with. Combined with the lessons of entrepreneurship that they learned through Startup Summer, they were able to examine challenges and opportunities in a new way and develop new real-world solutions to address needs in our community.

Just like Teach for America’s enthusiasm for this innovative work, Knight Foundation’s support extended beyond the summer. We partnered to host design thinking workshops at The Idea Center at Miami Dade College, teaching TFA educators about human-centered design and helping them explore classroom and community challenges through this lens. The educators tackled issues such as character development, integrating arts and expression back into schools, homelessness in Miami, student access to empowerment tools, and the economic advancement of students in our communities. This year interns also participated in biweekly webinars led by business and community leaders and past Startup Summer interns on topics ranging from Startup Jargon 101 to search engine optimization.

In May, I traveled with 10 TFA alumni and corps members to the headquarters of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., where we participated in powerful workshops with entrepreneurs from across the country who are creating high-impact change in education. We engaged in rich discussions and sessions that touched on topics such as diversity in innovation, crafting the perfect pitch, scaling ventures, fundraising for nonprofit and for-profit ventures, building a team, and much more. The experience gave us a powerful opportunity to learn from other entrepreneurs and expand our network of leaders creating solutions where needed.

After seeing what was possible through our first Startup Summer partnership, we were even more excited to scale this work this summer and in the coming year. And we’re grateful to once again call Knight Foundation partners. This year, 20 Teach For America-Miami-Dade corps members and alumni were selected to participate in the Summer Startup program. Those educators committed 20 hours a week during this summer school break to work with 12 Miami-based startups, and they blogged weekly about their experiences.  Next spring, they will also have the opportunity to participate in a startup summit in Miami where they will explore entrepreneurship and innovation in education while developing the skills needed to address the root causes of issues we care about.   

Startup Summer is drawing new talent into the Miami startup community, while broadening the experiences of Teach For America teachers and providing them with a greater understanding of the opportunities to work towards educational equity outside classrooms in Miami. When we see our teachers take these lessons back to the classroom we know they aren’t just bringing innovation to today’s students, but they are introducing today’s students to future career opportunities and broadening the way they think about what’s possible for them. If you are interested in being a part of the conversation around bridging education and innovation, we welcome you to join!