Entrepreneurship program launched for high school students

Australian school Haileybury has recently launched a new program providing innovation and entrepreneurship courses for high school students.

Haileybury Enterprise Academy is based on the university-level HEX Ed Innovation program, which has been co-designed by HEX and Atlassian. It is usually targeted towards high school leavers, and will be delivered as an extra-curricular online program open to Year 10 and 11 students from across all Australian campuses. The program can be completed in their own time, at their own pace.

Students will learn tools and strategies to be innovative and entrepreneurial in any context, including startup businesses and tech companies, existing businesses, the public sector, and social enterprise. They will also learn how to adapt and succeed in a virtual, competitive, innovation-led world, and increase their entrepreneurial abilities by combining real-world and theory-based techniques and applying them to the startup ecosystem.

In addition to the self-paced online learning and fortnightly check-ins with Haileybury Head of Entrepreneurship Damien Meunier, students will also have regular mentoring with the HEX team and industry experts including Leon Belebrov, Principal Product Manager, Mobile at job search site Seek; Shoaib Iqbal, CEO & Founder of satellite technology startup Esper Satellites; and a host of technologists from tech giant Atlassian.

They will also be exposed to the Melbourne startup ecosystem and meet with founders, investors and technologists via “HEXcursions”. For high school students, it’s an experience they otherwise would never be able to have, and one that could guide them on their future careers.

“We are thrilled to launch our first high school partnership program with one of Australia’s innovative and most entrepreneurial schools. We believe young people and the next generation need to be exposed to new learning pathways and future opportunities to unlock their full potential and help them design and build the world they want to live in,” said Chris Hoffmann, HEX Chief Growth Officer.

“With the world and future workforce changing at such a rapid pace and innovation being pivotal across all areas of business, it is an exciting time for us to challenge the traditional education pathways and see how we can further children’s skills and experiences sooner in life.

“We look forward to forging partnerships with more forward-thinking schools and education providers to deliver a new kind of learning that keeps pace with the changes of tech, the workplace and the real world.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Hispanolistic