Designing a toolkit to teach kids how to start a company

The Create Foundation is an initiative that seeks to promote entrepreneurial culture in schools. Even though the foundation had been working for 2 years with schools in Madrid, and teaching both students and children the values and relevance of entrepreneurship in society, they were not getting the expected outcomes. The projects presented lacked creativity and did not manage to engage children in the activities.

The Create Foundation team asked us to help them redesign their program so that both students and teachers would better grasp the concepts and values of the initiative.

We understood that if the beneficiaries of this program were to be children from 8 to 12, we had to work with them in developing a tool kit that would be engaging enough to guide them through the development of an idea and also teach them the necessary abilities.

Design workshops with children of different ages were conducted in order to design tools that would help them in the different phases stablished for the program. We found out the opportunities in these children’s routines for exploration and creativity, and we designed tools that would facilitate their observation and interpretation of their environment.

Considering their difficulties with the process of convergence, we designed a board game that would help them analyze the gathered information and find insights to work with. Finally, a business model canvas that children could understand, was
adapted for them to work on their ideas.

Due to limited resources all materials had to be designed in a format that could be easily reproduced in the classrooms. Therefore everything was included in a paper booklet were children could find several cut outs with instructions: a camera, a
note pad, etc.

RESULTS
The Create Foundation is extremely proud of the projects that are presented every following year year. Children have been getting involved in generating solutions for challenges in more areas of their day to day, from a visit to the dentist to walking around the park.