University of Delaware Horn Entrepreneurship is offering 10 Delaware high schools launch grants for its newest youth offering, EntreX Lab. EntreX Lab (short for “Entrepreneurial Experience Laboratory”) is an opportunity for high school students to take credit-bearing entrepreneurship coursework through the University of Delaware.
Each launch grant will cover the costs associated with educator professional development, curriculum licensing and full tuition scholarships for up to 20 students in the first year of the program, a value of more than $13,000. To learn more about EntreX Labs Delaware Launch Grants, visit the website.
EntreX Lab provides students with guidance and direct experience in identifying real world problems and utilizing evidence-based methods to solve them. Participants in the EntreX Lab program are taught by their high school teachers using Horn Entrepreneurship’s proprietary curriculum, earn college credits from the University of Delaware and signal their preparedness for the rigors of higher education or employment. Teachers receive both initial training and on-going support to ensure high fidelity implementation.
For the past two years, Horn Entrepreneurship and Delaware high schools have piloted EntreX Lab. Caesar Rodney High School, Glasgow High School, Newark Charter School, Odyssey Charter School, Ursuline Academy, William Penn High School, and Wilmington Charter School participated in the dual enrollment program.
“It was just amazing to witness our students’ educational growth, maturity and confidence,” said EntreX instructor Ed Smith, Academy Teacher and Director at Glasgow High School.
Program participants have also felt the impact of EntreX Lab on their education and experience. “The entrepreneurship courses helped shift my perspective as a teenager who emigrated from Venezuela,” said William Penn High School alumna Valentina Maza. “I received a full scholarship to college, which would not have been possible without this program.”
This year’s EntreX Lab culminated in an event showcasing student projects. To view the 2021 EntreX Lab Delaware Ventures Showcase, visit this webpage. These students earned more than $4,500 in follow-on funding to support their projects.
EntreX Lab is the latest addition to Horn’s expanding youth programs including its internationally recognized, top ranked high school student competition, the Diamond Challenge; classroom mini-grant program for classroom educators, the Innovative Delaware Educator Awards; and a high school student summer program, the Entrepreneurial Ventures Summer Accelerator.
About Horn Entrepreneurship
Horn Entrepreneurship serves as the creative engine for entrepreneurship education and advancement at the University of Delaware. Currently ranked among the best entrepreneurship programs in the US, Horn Entrepreneurship was built and is actively supported by successful entrepreneurs, empowering aspiring innovators as they pursue new ideas for a better world.
At its founding in 2012, Horn Entrepreneurship launched a youth initiative to address major gaps in secondary entrepreneurship education. At the time, most existing youth programs focused on small business management. In contrast, Horn Youth has been built to focus on unleashing creativity, encouraging a mindset of abundance and self-determination, and promoting purposeful entrepreneurial action. Today, Horn Youth is internationally recognized and has a robust local and global ecosystem and network consisting of more than 10,000 alumni, 1800 educators and 60 organizations that catalyze entrepreneurship education and impact.
