Last week, the MassTLC Ed Foundation (MassTLC EF) hosted the fourth and final workshop for the 2018 Technovation participants from Massachusetts, a webinar with our very own Kirk Arnold, a serial entrepreneur, MIT lecturer, MassTLC Board Member, and 35+ year veteran of the tech industry.
Participants tuned in for Kirk’s presentation, “Business Plans and Pitching,” which covered the fundamentals of how entrepreneurs create, validate, and communicate the core of a great business.
First up? The characteristics of a successful entrepreneur.
“The world of entrepreneurship is many colors, many countries, many race, many genders. Anyone can be an entrepreneur. Nothing about this journey should scare you about being a young woman,” emphasized Kirk. Participants were challenged to rethink how entrepreneurship is traditionally defined, to be brave, and – most of all – to not be afraid to show their passion and spirit!
Students also learned some of the more technical skills associated with entrepreneurship, including how to validate ideas, how to understand customers, and how to define true problems that their customers experience. Kirk, with her vast range of experience, had great, detailed examples to share with the group. Good understanding of the customer, she repeated, is the single necessary and sufficient step for a successful business.
From customers to competition to financial estimates and beyond, so much valuable information was packed into this one-hour session. It was an informative and fun event for all involved.
So what’s next for the young women of Technovation? As mentioned, this webinar marked the conclusion of the MassTLC EF workshop phase of the program. Now, over the next month, student teams will work together to build, test, and pitch their very own businesses ahead of the local showcase in May.
Here at MassTLC, we can’t wait to see what they build! We will share an update then.
In the meantime, if you are excited about Technovation and would like to learn more or to get involved, contact Rachel Nicoll at rnicoll@masstlc.org.
Interested in watching the webinar for yourself? You can watch the full recording online, here.
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Technovation is an international program that teaches mobile app development, entrepreneurship, and community engagement to middle and high school girls. MassTLC’s Education Foundation runs the Massachusetts regional competition round, which culminates in a team showcase in May. Last year, over 35 teams participated in the showcase. We were able to send three senior division teams and two junior division teams from Massachusetts to the global semi-finals.
