Year in Review 2025: MQi x YW Secondary Schools Program

✅Another spectacular year of the MQ Incubator x Young Wisdom Secondary Schools Program!🙌

First up, a huge thank you to all the careers advisers, teachers, school executives, parents, partners across Macquarie University, and supporters of every kind who helped make the following results possible, alongside our small but dedicated team of creatives, entrepreneurs, and educators from the Macquarie University Incubator and Young Wisdom.

We reached over 4,600 students this year in a variety of contexts, from our 'Deep Dive' design thinking workshops and 1-day bootcamps to our term-long Ideas Challenges (of which there were 2 this year) and entirely new 3-day programs. Keep scrolling to read all about them.👇

We ran or supported at least 44 different events and programs in all, which brought us into contact with over 60 schools.

Since the Secondary Schools Program was founded towards the end of 2023, we have now reached over 10,173 students from more than 90 schools.

Here's our 2025 scorecard with some additional metrics:

In 2025, we saw 'ongoing interactions' increase from 174 to 500 students. This is an important marker of the trust educators place in us and how we've been working on longer programs (including curricular and extracurricular term programs) in close collaboration.

It's also part of our mission to provide ongoing support infrastructure for students exploring entrepreneurial ventures and other problem-solving initiatives while they're in high school. 

For example, this year we saw multiple students progress from our term-long Ideas Challenge programs into our first 3-day holiday camp in conjunction with the Macquarie Business School. They earned Macquarie University-issued microcredentials for both programs and will hopefully see us again through the same programs (as well as possible incursions and term programs at their schools) next year.

As the Secondary School Program grows and matures, pathways for ongoing engagement are being created for students that we think are key to safely and responsibly unlocking more of their creative and entrepreneurial potential alongside their high school studies.

Announcements will follow next year on how we plan on doing this on a larger scale, including beyond the Sydney metro area!💡

Some of the top highlights of 2025 

✨ Codesign and launch of our first timetabled in-school program for 60 x Y8 HPGE students at Castle Hill High School

Check out one of our favourite pieces of student work this year - behold, a 'rich picture' of a school library!🤩 

✨ Largest full-day, single-school bootcamp held at the MQ Incubator to date with 90 x Y10 students from Loreto Normanhurst

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience more than I thought I would. It taught me valuable skills that I will take into my future career and beyond. - Student

I really enjoyed the way we were able to work with friends to discuss and use creative skills to adapt a solution, as many interesting ideas stemmed from our conversations and we were able to develop a good presentation. - Student

I enjoyed learning about how to solve problems through a step-by-step process. I loved being supported with my peers to create a powerful solution to a real world problem facing our generation today. Seeing other interesting solutions from different groups allowed me to wonder about the power our generation has to make a difference and provide out of the box solutions. - Student

✨ Two successful cycles of our term-long Ideas Challenge program with over 246 students across 100 teams being invited to take part; in all, we issued 587 microcredentials for the successful completion of the 3 assessments and making it to Pitch Night

👉 Click here for the Term 1 Pitch Night writeup

👉 Click here for the Term 3 Pitch Night writeup

At the always-fun-and-inspiring final Pitch Nights, this year 80% of founder teams were from NSW Public Schools and 70% of teams included at least one girl (most were all-girl teams).

The program is not only interesting and fun but also engaging and made me determined and eager to accomplish my end goal. The program also gives clear and concise guidance to help me. Excited to join again. Recommend to all. - Student

✨ Taking part in the Macquarie University Roads Mid-North Coast program, visiting Grafton High School, Bishop Druitt College, and Maclean High School

👉 See Georgia's writeup about the experience

✨ Codesigning and delivering the Macquarie Business School Teen Business Builders Holiday Camp for 17 students from 9 schools, all of whom received a microcredential for their efforts over the 3-day 'mini-startup accelerator' program

👉 See the full writeup

A really fun but educational experience and definitely taught useful skills needed in the future. It was also really cool to talk to/interview a bunch of startup founders, so overall a really exciting experience - absolutely recommend! - Student Founder

The most memorable part was conducting the interviews as it gave us lots of unexpected but useful data that we could put towards our startup. It was also interesting to hear about peoples journeys of creating their own startups. - Student Founder

It gave me the confidence to know that I can pitch in front of others. - Student Founder

✨A 'Handmake a Difference' term program at Redlands Junior School even more successful than last year, with over $5,000 raised for UNICEF by Years 5 & 6 students at their end-of-program market evening

✨ First 3-day 'Interschool Challenge' held at Macquarie University for 120 students from Castle Hill High School, The Ponds High School and Cherrybrook Technology High School during Term 4

One of our largest initiatives to date, and certainly our largest in-person program, the first Interschool Challenge was a fantastic experience that saw large numbers of students engage in authentic learning alongside real MQ Incubator startups under the guidance of the SSP team and three guest academics from Macquarie Business School and the School of Psychological Sciences. Huge thanks to all our guest founders and staff members who made this a fun, memorable and educational end to Term 4 for so many students from three of our favourite partner schools this year!

The competitive spirit was fun, as was the opportunity to work with real startups. - Student

The challenge was an interesting, quirky wealth of knowledge that pushed me to create innovative solutions among my peers from other schools. The knowledge and skills I gained are insurmountable and I will cherish the experience. - Student

The MQ Incubator x Young Wisdom Interschool Challenge was a great experience. We got the opportunity to meet so many new people and learn about them! The startups were a great introduction into the entrepreneurship world and how it operates in the real world, making this challenge much more impactful. There were also many opportunities to improve our public speaking, pitching and improptu speaking skills. - Student

✨ 8 more successful multi-school bootcamps with continuing positive feedback from students and teachers alike

We still love our multi-school bootcamp days, where we take 6-8 students from up to 6 schools on a design thinking journey in a day. In freshly mixed teams, students learn to collaborate rapidly and consistently surprise themselves with how much they can achieve in a day. With our guidance, they end up pitching a new hypothetical venture grounded in the lived experience of one of their teammates - with a paper prototype outlining their new product, service or initiative - all before 3pm. 

When asked how satisfied they were with the bootcamp, 61 students in 2025 gave us an average score of 7.8/10. The same average score was given when asked if they would recommend a future bootcamp to a friend.

I found the bootcamp to be a wonderful and extremely useful experience! I think we all learnt skills that will help us in any career we choose to do in the future. I especially enjoyed pitching our ideas.  - Student

I found it heaps of fun and enjoyed the task that we were given, It challenged me to grow me skills and work with new people. - Student

I think that out of everything we did on the day the best thing that I learnt honestly was communication skills and how to have a 2 sided conversation and that the shorter amount of time you have the more ideas flow and the more you stop second guessing yourself. I also loved working with other schools from different places across sydney which was eye opening. - Student

We got to hear from 14 accompanying teachers for their thoughts on the bootcamp day. When asked how satisfied they were, we saw an average score of 9.5. When asked how likely they are to participate again/recommend a future bootcamp to their school, it was 9.4.

It was great to see the students engaging with the activities and working with others from different schools. - Teacher

The space was inspirational and the staff motivated to bring the best out of the students. A wonderful opportunity to learn.  - Teacher

It was a great opportunity for students to share their enthusiasm in turning their ideas into something achievable. - Teacher

In addition to the 8 fully-funded multi-school bootcamps we offered, we also saw 5 bookings for tailored single-school bootcamps as part of deepening relationships with schools like Castle Hill High School, Loreto Normanhurst, PLC Sydney and Redlands.

Final thoughts

We feel immensely fortunate to get to work with you and your students in preparing them for a complex future full of ambiguity and opportunity.

All the skills and confidence-building we do through our various programs is intended to help them face up to the future with a sense of informed optimism, agency and self-efficacy.

Our overarching focus remains on building future-proof, transferable skills like creative thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, resourcefulness, resilience and of course persuasive communication, which will benefit students throughout life regardless of their career aspirations.

It's never about glamourising entrepreneurial careers, but learning as much as we can from such stories and firsthand experiences to help make us capable of effecting change and making meaningful contributions wherever we end up.

Once again looking ahead to 2026 with much gratitude and excitement

We want to again thank all of the innovative educators who sought out, coordinated, and/or helped design these opportunities for their students throughout the year; none of this would be possible without your support, it’s been a joy getting to collaborate with you, and we look forward to seeing you again in the New Year!

We're keen to announce several new school partnerships across the public and private systems, as well as continuing our existing in-school programs. You'll have to wait for Term 1...😉

The Ideas Challenge will be back in Term 1, and we’re currently accepting applications from students who will be in Years 9-12 in 2026.

If you're a student: applications will remain open until the 20th of February, so there’s plenty of time to find and enter and idea you’d be keen to explore further! You can also enter a startup or business you're already working on.

And for the educators here: we’d love to visit your school in Weeks 2-3 of Term 1 for an assembly visit, a year group meeting or even a single class to share this opportunity. There's no cost for these short visits, but they're subject to availability. If you'd be keen to coordinate this with us, please email hello@youngwisdom.com.au or shahe@youngwisdom.com.au. 

We’ll be back at it from Monday 19 January and please feel free to keep in touch throughout the holidays if we can assist you with anything, including planning for 2026.

🎄Wishing you a wonderful holiday and a well-deserved rest.

See you in the New Year!✌️

Best wishes,

The Secondary Schools Program team