Empowering your young innovators

It was unquestionably authentic, real-world learning with value well beyond the classroom. It stretched most of the students well beyond their comfort zone but did so in an environment which encouraged risk-taking and in which the leaders modelled taking the same risks themselves. The end result was a visible transformation in the confidence, performance and polish of the students within a single day. It was masterful.

The Student Startup Bootcamp at Macquarie University Incubator was a fantastic experience, pushing students out of their comfort zones and enhancing their design thinking skills. They collaborated with peers, tackled real-world problems, and developed crucial life skills. This immersive day fostered confidence and entrepreneurial spirit.

Our students thoroughly enjoyed the excursion and they learned about a whole realm of entrepreneurship that they were previously unaware of. Our students are creative tinkerers and inventors, but have not thoroughly explored entrepreneurship. It is the perfect integration and supplementation to their education, and fills the gaps that our school has not yet explored.

We can't thank you enough for the brilliant day you gave our students on Friday. The students - as well as the teacher - came back struggling for superlatives to describe it.

I found the day to be absolutely amazing. Personally, I've been to 2-3 other similar programs, but none of them have engaged me and my peers as well as this one did. Everything, from the structure of the day, to the quick 5-minute brainstorms, was well thought out and executed perfectly. The thought of collaborating with students from different schools, let alone presenting to them, was daunting at first, but the activities we were given allowed us all to not only quickly familiarise ourselves with each other, but we were able to work efficiently and effectively to pitch our ideas. I am extremely grateful for this experience, and it has most definitely boosted my confidence when it comes to presenting and working with people I'm not familiar with.

It's difficult to pinpoint an exact favourite, but I really enjoyed how well thought-out the whole event was, and it had a very important focus on student engagement. Having been to similar bootcamp type events before, none of them matched this level of student interaction where we actually went through the design thinking process ourselves and did quick-fire empathising and ideation. None of the other events even mentioned pitching, so I am very happy with how this event has communicated these important ideas to students.