Ninety-four percent of students at Camelback High School in Phoenix identify as students of color. Ninety percent come from low-income households. And for most of them, the path from ambition to economic independence has never been clearly marked.
SEED SPOT is working to change that.
With support from the NBA Foundation, SEED SPOT launched a Youth Entrepreneurship Program at Camelback High School in 2024, embedding entrepreneurship and workforce development directly into the school curriculum. The result: students who arrive with potential and leave with proof of it.
The Problem Isn’t Ambition. It’s Access.
Across the United States, underrepresented youth face the steepest barriers to hands-on, real-world learning experiences. In under-resourced communities like the one surrounding Camelback High, traditional education systems rarely offer pathways to economic independence. Internships, career exploration, and professional networks aren’t part of the curriculum for most students here.
The gap isn’t about what young people want. It’s about what systems have been built to give them.
SEED SPOT’s Youth Entrepreneurship Program was designed to close that gap not with theory, but with experience.
What Happens When Young Founders Get the Right Room
The program combines entrepreneurship education, mentorship, and paid internships to create meaningful post-high school pathways. Students don’t just learn about business, they build one.
Through project-based learning that mirrors real workplace environments, students practice communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and public speaking as they design a venture from the ground up. Programming includes prototyping, branding, design thinking, and leadership development. Students are also introduced to modern tools that most have never used.
“I learned how to use AI and digital tools to brainstorm ideas and create a marketing campaign,” one student shared.
A key part of the program is mentorship and exposure. Students connect with entrepreneurs, industry professionals, and community leaders, broadening the networks that most of their peers outside under-resourced communities already have. These relationships do more than just open doors; they help young people see opportunities they didn’t know existed.
The Results Speak for Themselves
Students who complete the program graduate with more than a diploma. They leave with a business concept, a pitch deck, and a professional development plan, tools that support both entrepreneurial paths and traditional careers.
Paid internships further reinforce learning, with students completing over 120 hours of real-world work experience. And confidence, the kind that’s hard to measure but impossible to miss, shows up in every outcome.
“I’ve always been shy,” one student reflected, “but I gained confidence presenting my ideas clearly and professionally to an audience.”
Another said: “Working with my peers on our prototypes helped me develop new collaboration and problem-solving skills that I can use in college.”
The early data backs it up: 77% of students gained the skills to start a business. 81% increased their confidence in pursuing new ideas. 93% developed resilience.
These aren’t participation metrics. They’re proof of what’s possible when young people get access to the right room.
The Next Generation Is Already Building
SEED SPOT believes entrepreneurship belongs to everyone, including young people who are already imagining solutions to problems the rest of the world hasn’t yet solved.
The Youth Entrepreneurship Program at Camelback is one chapter in that story. But it’s a chapter that matters, because when young founders get the tools, mentorship, and space to explore ideas, they don’t just build businesses. They build futures for themselves and for the communities that raised them.
→ Learn more about SEED SPOT’s programs at seedspot.org/programs
