Think the interns look young? Meet today’s entrepreneurs.

Illustration credit: Maren Kranking

Around this time of year, if you work in a big company and hang around the water cooler long enough, you're likely to overhear talk about how young the interns look. The halls of corporate America are speckled with the fresh faces of college kids getting a taste of the work world. Brace yourself then, for today’s entrepreneurs, who make the interns (not to mention the rest of us) look like geezers.

A few weeks ago, I talked with a team of high school girls in Aurora who had developed a glove which makes it easier for people with arthritic hands to hold a pen again. They were finalists in the IMSA Power Pitch. They have already begun reaching out to glove manufacturers, and are working to identify local resources for sample creation before going to market. Longer term they intend to seek FDA approval and have their gloves distributed via a prescription via physical therapists.

Students pitching concepts to the judges.

Teaching design in Chicago Public Schools.

Then there's the Chicago Public Schools initiative to teach design entrepreneurship. All semester, I’ve been helping eighth graders at Chicago’s Nettelhorst School learn the product design innovation process, going from ideation to crowdfunding in five months. Students were given the challenge of addressing kitchen clutter with the constraint of using a 12x24 sheet of metal that can be fabricated locally. They came up with a wide range of promising concepts, built prototypes, refined the ideas, developed costs & business plans. One concept has been selected to go forward and the kids are busy pulling together a marketing plan and Kickstarter campaign, which ideally will go live before graduation. Crowdfunding via Kickstarter is enabling them to reach out directly to prospective buyers to generate pre-sales needed to fund production. You can check out last year’s project here – Elephant Hooks, which raised over $10,000.

Eleven-year-old Lilly Born with the Kangaroo Cup she invented.

Speaking of Kickstarter, the eleven-year-old Lilly Born just went live with her second Kickstarter campaign. Lilly designed a unique three-legged cup to make it easier for her grandpa, who has Parkinsons, to grip a cup without spilling. Her first ceramic cups were a hit, and now she’s back at it with an unbreakable version of the Kangaroo Cup. You can check out her project here.

I love so much about what these kids are doing. I love that they are motivated by making people’s lives better in whatever simple way they can. I love that they are not shrinking from making a difference because they are young. I love that they are not stopping at the idea stage but persevering through the development phase to actually get their concepts realized. And I love that they are using crowdfunding for market validation so their new product proposals aren’t laughed off by the gatekeepers at big corporations.

So yes, the interns may look young. But across town, the real disruptors just went out for recess.