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Sixty Bay Area middle school students participated in Startup Weekend EDU Mountain View, a 54-hour workshop designed to teach students about founding startups and entrepreneurship, at Crittenden Middle School April 12 and 13.

The event marked the first Startup Weekend for middle school kids, according to Chris Chiang, a member of the Mountain View Whisman School Board.

During Startup Weekend, students come up with startup ideas and form teams to create a business model, code, design, and market their ideas. At the end of the event students present their ideas to local entrepreneurial leaders, who scrutinize whether or nor the product will have a chance at success in the real world, according to the Startup Weekend organizers.

The event focused on startups designed to solve problems in the education space, with an emphasis on how real life and digital games can improve learning, according to the event website. Though competition is not a central theme of the event, teams that place first and second will have a private consultation with representatives from Facebook and Google, respectively, about their ideas.

Startup Weekend is a non-profit organization based in Seattle, with event organizers in over 200 cities across the world, committed to introducing people to the world of startups by hosting weekend-long workshops.

A video summarizing day one and two of the event can be found here.

Kevin Forestieri is the editor of Mountain View Voice, joining the company in 2014. Kevin has covered local and regional stories on housing, education and health care, including extensive coverage of Santa...

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  1. I was mentoring one of the teams, the energy level and enthusiasm from the kids was intense, and they we so sharp, very very impressed with the whole weekend. This is just one example of what makes Mountain View and MVWSD district so awesome. Talked to one board member who wants to make this part of the curriculum. Sounds like it will become biannual event.

  2. Video Link to a Full Recap of the Weekend (4 amazing minutes!):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l26MVdl9524

    1st: Notebook Check: a notebook with social and gamified features
    (winner also was the only all girls team and mostly a Crittenden/Graham team)
    2nd: PeerHelp: a chatroom to connect kids around the world working on similar HW
    3rd: GameStudy: a site that mimics popular games to teach content (MathyBird)
    Audience Prize: FailDeny, a gel based iPad case cover for schools
    Game Category: DiveIn, a site that turns content into interactive games (being an apprentice in da Vinci’s workshop)

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