3 Questions: A new resource to empower young entrepreneurs

The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship has created a free, AI-powered youth entrepreneurship platform called Dear Dreamer, made possible through a gift from the Frank and Eileen Foundation. It is open to all students in middle and high school.

Dear Dreamer adapts the disciplined entrepreneurship framework into a digital, self-paced learning experience featuring short educational videos, interactive exercises, and personalized feedback on the user's idea. Bill Aulet, managing director of the Trust Center and the Ethernet Inventors Professor of the Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management, said the goal is to empower 50,000 young entrepreneurs by 2030.

Aulet's book "Disciplined Entrepreneurship" walks readers through the 24 steps of starting a venture. It has sold more than half a million copies, and MIT students who use the framework in the delta v startup accelerator program have a 61 percent survival/acquisition rate and have collectively raised over $3 billion, according to the source.

While the framework is taught at hundreds of colleges around the world, it was not designed for younger students. Aulet said the platform was inspired by the vision of Audrey McLoghlin, founder and CEO of apparel brand Frank and Eileen and president of the Frank and Eileen Foundation. He showed her Jetpack, MIT's generative AI tool trained on disciplined entrepreneurship, and she said the work should be made accessible to young people.

Aulet said the team worked with younger students to make the content digestible for 10-, 12-, and 14-year-olds, adding case studies and examples for each framework step and designing the interface to be more like Instagram or YouTube. He said the content follows the same path as the MIT curriculum but is presented differently.

He said entrepreneurship is a mindset, skillset, and way of operating that helps people deal with change, and that it is not only about founding companies.