“Startup Weekend Youth was a very empowering event for middle school students because it gave them the space to explore and share their ideas and to learn useful entrepreneurial skills.”—Aleata Hubbard, Research Associate, WestEd STEM program

Startup Weekend Youth is an annual event taking place in cities all over the world— where young entrepreneurs come together and turn an idea into reality within 54 hours.

Middle school students in California’s Bay Area were no exception. They recently gathered at Crittenden Middle School in Mountain View, CA, where they listened to each other’s ideas, formed teams, received coaching by educators and industry professionals, designed products, coded/created prototypes, and pitched their idea in front of a panel of judges and audience members.

Aleata Hubbard, a Research Associate in WestEd’s STEM program, served as a speaker at the event. She also helped students build apps using MIT’s App Inventor.

“The students I worked with were enthusiastic about the products they were developing with their teams and they were eager to share their plans,” says Hubbard, who, as a member of WestEd’s STEM program, explores computer science teaching practices and designs data management processes for large-scale, middle school mathematics studies.