What we ask of a district
A teacher, a room,
and two signatures.
We ask each district for a sponsoring teacher, a room for the in-person sessions, someone at each school to set dates with us, help telling seventh graders it exists, and a signed student data privacy agreement. It costs the district nothing. Nobody is handed an app and wished luck: the people who wrote a program run it before anyone else does.
- A student data privacy agreement between us and the district
- A consent form from each student’s parent or guardian
No student logs in until two things are signed: a student data privacy agreement between us and the school district, and a consent form from the student’s parent or guardian. We ask every family for consent, not only families of children under 13. What we will keep about a student, and for how long.
What runs
At their own pace, with a room to meet in.
The ideas a business school teaches, spread over six years instead of two, in a web app with nothing to install. Students work through the same written lessons at their own pace with Pip, an AI tutor that explains, asks questions and gives feedback. Pip teaches from lessons we write and check; it does not make up the course. The room is for what an app cannot do: guest speakers from business, and conversation about what is happening in it now. Each student picks one venture in Grade 7 and builds on it through Grade 12. Grade 7 is in the educator preview, Grade 8 beside it as a draft, Grades 9 to 12 next. No student has used it yet.
Six years of the ideas a business school teaches, at their own pace, alongside people who do the work: for a student who has nothing else like it, this is their business school. It is also not a business school. No degree, no credit, no transcript, and no tuition either. What we do and do not grant.
Why there is still a room
The app teaches.
The room is for
wanting it.
An app can teach the ideas. It cannot make a thirteen-year-old want them, or introduce them to someone who does this for a living. That is what the room is for: a guest lecture, or a fireside conversation about something happening in business now, with the other students who chose to be there. The app is how this reaches every student who wants it. The room is meant to be why they keep going.
Cindy Ha, the founder, runs the in-person side: she brings in the speakers and guests, sets dates with each school's principal, and intends to be at every session herself until the program outgrows one person. She built a business without this material and met the formal version years later, which is why the organization exists. Her story is here.
Pip, the tutor
What it will
and will not do.
It says it is an AI
The tutor is called Pip, after the mascot on our books, and every screen where it speaks says Pip is an AI, not a person.
It stays on the lessons
Pip is a name, not a character. It does not play one, keep up a friendship, remember anything beyond a student's lessons and work, or chat about anything else. On a personal or safety topic it stops and points the student to a trusted adult at school.
Adults can read every conversation
The school's sponsor and our staff can review what Pip said to any student, at any time.
The least data that works
Students sign in with the account their school district gave them; we never hold a password. We do not collect phone numbers, home addresses or personal email addresses.
Nothing sold, nothing trained
No ads. Student work is never sold, and never used to train an AI model.
Nobody starts without signatures
No student logs in until the district has signed a data privacy agreement and a parent has signed a consent form.
We put these in writing for every host district. The data privacy agreement each district signs, not this list, binds us.
Try it first
See it the way
a student would.
All eight Grade 7 units are in the web app, with Grade 8 as a draft. Educators and district staff can try it as a student would, Pip included, then see what the teacher sponsor sees. It sits behind a passcode because no student may use it until a district has signed a data agreement and families have consented. Write to us for the passcode.
How we will know
The plan goes public
before the first lesson.
What we measure, whom we compare, and what result would count against us are posted on the Open Science Framework before any student logs in, so they cannot be changed later to look better. The evidence page has what the plan will lock in.
One email starts it.
If you sit anywhere near that decision, in a district office, a middle school or a county office of education, write to us. The only signatures are the ones that protect students.
Young Innovators for Change · 501(c)(3) · EIN 33-1544346 · Programs aimed at Southern California