Teens in Tech is running a summer incubator program to help 5 teams of high school students launch a web or mobile product. The program is similar to the other tech incubators generating a lot of press recently, Y Combinator and TechStars, but is open to just teenagers.
One challenge the Teen’s in Tech incubator must face is a lack of technical experience of the young founders – in many cases this is the first web or mobile application the team will have created. This means that in addition to learning how to run a company, the teams must first acquire the technical knowledge required to create a product from scratch.
Breakout Mentors founder Brian Skinner is working alongside an extremely talented group of mentors to create a training program for the teams. Be sure to check back or join our email list for updates on how the incubator is progressing.
Update: Recap After Working with the Teams
The first Teens in Tech Incubator was an incredible success, but I am sad to see it come to an end. The program took 6 teams of teenagers, ranging from 14 to 19 years old, and challenged them to launch a tech startup in only 8 weeks. What they were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time was truly amazing!
Breakout Mentors provided a plan for technical mentorship for the company founders, who ranged in expertise from having no programming experience to already having coded a working product. The terrific team of mentors provided instruction in HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript, but much of the learning was accomplished by the teenagers tinkering on their own. At the end of the 8 weeks, the teams launched their products at the Teens in Tech Conference!
Here is a short video of the teams explaining what their companies are all about:
Be sure to check out their products: My School Help, Workcrib, Codulous, Bubbls, and of course, Zombie Survival.