#BreakerBOI provides young leaders with entrepreneurial skills to transform ideas for emerging industry
BOISE – Project Breaker — a real world, problem-solving event — will set up shop in the City of Trees June 18 to inspire the entrepreneurial process and foster design thinking in high schoolers.
This radical collaboration of 15 Treasure Valley high school students, business and civic leaders, teachers, entrepreneurs and makers will set out to research, design and test the viability and social impact of real world business applications. The specific challenge posed for the Boise Breaker (#BreakerBOI) project is: what is the future of stuff?
In cooperation with the Stanford University d.school, Treasure Valley-based One Stone and the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation, Boise joins Detroit, New York City and Portland as just the fourth city in the country to host a Breaker event. #BreakerBOI is also the first to engage high school students in the challenge.
The outcome of the challenge will emerge through an eight-day design thinking process. Pioneered at the Stanford d.school, design thinking — a repeatable method to solve problems and discover innovation that focuses on user experience — is one of the fastest growing concepts in both business and education. The design thinking process is used by some of the most innovative companies and industries that focus on the user experience, including Apple and Google.
The project provides the platform for learning social innovation, entrepreneurship practices and the critical skills needed in the workplaces of tomorrow.
“Project Breaker gets students engaged in real education and project-based learning,” Albertson Foundation Senior Program Officer in Change Management Lisa Fisher said. “Entrepreneurship is a hot career path. This is a hands-on way to get that experience and create an entrepreneurial mindset.”
“We couldn’t be more excited to bring Project Breaker to Boise,” Breaker founder and TED Senior Fellow Juliette LaMontagne said. “While Idaho is vastly different than New York City or Detroit, the similarities to major urban centers that the Boise area provides, combined with the entrepreneurial appetite of Boise’s students, we’re expecting some amazing things from this group of high school students.”
Timberline High School senior and One Stone board member Kate Simonds said #BreakerBOI provides the setting for her peers to put into action student-led collaboration in the social entrepreneurship setting.
“High school students are natural makers and doers,” Simonds said. “This is a great opportunity for us to share our voice and talent.”
The event is June 18-25 at the Garro Building in downtown Boise. The students will do site visits to area businesses and maker spaces including Micron, Cascade Raft, Greenspeed and Boise Bicycle Project throughout the challenge.
In the future, Fisher hopes the event and process will scale statewide, both virtually and physically.
The public is invited to engage in #BreakerBOI at the kick-off event on Wednesday, June 18, and at the “pitch” event when the students will share their ideas and findings on June 25. The launch celebration features global business leaders, makers and entrepreneurs, including:
Lisa Fisher – Senior Program Officer, Change Management at the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation
Joel Poppen – Vice President of Legal Affairs, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Micron Technology
Kent Ivanoff – CEO at iVinci Health
Mark Barker – Executive Director at Reuseum Educational, Inc.
#BreakerBOI kick-off event:
What: #BreakerBOI kick-off event, featuring talks from industry-leading experts
When: June 18, 2014, 5:30 p.m. Where: The Linen Building
Who: Public is invited. Please RSVP. Free.
#BreakerBOI “pitch” event:
What: “Come hear the next big thing.” Conclusion of eight-day challenge, showcasing student findings, products
When: June 25, 2014, 9 a.m. Where: The Linen Building
Who: Public is invited. Please RSVP. Free.
To RSVP for either event, contact Neva Geisler at One Stone: neva@onestone.org.
Engage on social media:
Facebook: facebook.com/breakerboi
Twitter and Instagram: onestoneidaho
About Stanford University d.school
The d.school is a hub for innovators at Stanford University. Students and faculty in engineering, medicine, business, law, the humanities, sciences and education find their way to d.school to take on the world’s messy problems together. The d.school focuses on creating spectacularly transformative learning experiences. As part of that work the d.school’s K12 Lab Network is dedicated to building the creative confidence of young people, educators and education innovators.
For more information, visit: K12lab.org and d.school.stanford.edu
About One Stone
One Stone makes students better leaders and the world a better place. As a Treasure Valley- based student directed 501c(3), One Stone empowers high school students to develop valuable skills and values by leading engaging experiential service projects that transform individuals and communities. In all projects, students seek understanding and authentic connection with the population served. Through this, One Stone achieves a double bottom line of success: students learn and practice critical 21st century skills, and the community benefits from the impact of the project.
For more information, visit: onestone.org
About the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation
The J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation is a Boise-based private family foundation committed to the vision of limitless learning for all Idahoans. In the last 16 years, the Albertson Foundation has invested more than $600 million in Idaho. To review the Foundation’s 2013
Annual Grant Report, or for more information, visit jkaf.org.
About Breaker
Breaker’s mission is to drive social innovation and alternative learning by mobilizing interdisciplinary teams of young creative collaborators to help solve the world’s most pressing problems. We connect our young people with global thought leaders and industry experts to answer challenges like literacy, urban agriculture, and technology for civic engagement. We facilitate a creative problem-solving design process and teach the entrepreneurial skills necessary to transform ideas into businesses.
Each unique Breaker project is a collaboration between the Breaker team, the visionaries who pose their challenge, and the industry experts who support their process. We work with multiple partner organizations to ideate, build, and test real solutions with real market value. Participants leave Breaker with new perspectives and abilities. Products result from Breaker ready to be stress-tested and developed. To learn more, visit projectbreaker.org.
