On an otherwise reasonable evening in July, more than 1,000 people packed an auditorium in Boulder, Colorado, for the culmination of the 2014 Unreasonable Institute. They came to watch 11 ventures present their solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges.
In this video, Gorazd Prah explains how his Slovenian startup, Ustvarjalnik, grew out of a frustration with high unemployment rates and typical high school curricula (the latter perhaps feeding the former). The world has changed rapidly in the past few years, Prah points out, but education hasn’t. So Ustvarjalnik brings entrepreneurs to high school classrooms and engages students with open-ended assignments aimed at solving real-world challenges. (One example: “Go get your picture taken with the mayor.”)
The coursework in the extracurricular program eventually progresses to real entrepreneurship, with some students launching their own startups—and all students graduating with real-world entrepreneurial skills.