This might actually work

The X-Culture Kids program starts tomorrow – and it looks like it might actually work!

We have spent the past two months developing an X-Culture program for kids. The idea is that it would be the same program that our university students go through, but the participants will be kids ages 9-17.

Obviously, we’ll have to simplify the task, provide more training before the project stats, design it a bit more like a game, but other than that, it’s the same X-Culture.

The biggest challenge was the recruitment. We hired about 40 people in all major cities around the planed and they went school to school telling teachers about X-Culture.

That did not work very well. Teachers loved the idea, but usually had no right to add a project like this to their courses.

So we pivoted. We switched our promotion efforts towards parents. That worked much better. Parents do not have to get a school district’s approval to enroll their kids in X-Culture.

Interestingly, many teachers still enrolled their students in X-Culture, but as an optional after-school club.

Our recruitment campaign was hundred by the winter holidays, but in the end close to 200 kids have enrolled.

We have our first Orientation Webinar today and I got to meet some of the kids, as well as their parents and teachers.

WOW!

I’ll be honest, I was very worried how it would go. Are kids really ready for X-Culture? Well, some of these kids are just phenomenal. They way the talk, the way they think – I am telling you, not all my university students are this articulate and motivated.

This actually might work.

I still expect that we will lose some of the applicants when the project starts tomorrow. There are always some who sign up and don’t show up.

They will then have four weeks of pre-project training and four weekly theory tests. We must make sure everyone comes in prepared, which includes not only the skills and knowledge they need to complete a business consulting project in an international team, but also have the discipline to work hard week-in/week-out. I will not be surprised if we lose another 40-50% during this phase. There is no way all of those kids are disciplines and motivated enough to stay on the task for four weeks. We’ll see.

In this beta-round, we would like to end up with 10 or so teams (50-60 kids) that will allow us to test the concept. Assuming it works well, we’ll increase the number of participants in the subsequent semesters.

My own kids (10 and 13) are participating. And I honestly envy them. I wish when I was their age I had a chance to work with kids from around the world, meet CEOs and university professors, complete a business project, and maybe even see my ideas implemented by real companies.

For more, see the X-Culture Academy Handbook

As for the X-Culture Project for Universities, it looks like we’ll have about 5,000 students from 140 universities in 40 countries. The early track has already started, and the late track starts March 5. The applications keep coming in.

By Vas Taras