Back in 2013, Katie Boody and Carrie Markel realized that Kansas City schools were dying — and they decided to do something about it. Every summer since then, The Lean Lab has hosted its core program, The Incubator Fellowship, to support and coach early-stage startups focused on reimagining public education through entrepreneurship.
The third annual Incubator Fellowship kicked off last Wednesday at theSprint Accelerator. During the first (half) week, the Cohort dove headfirst into the history of public education and its loss of accreditation, and racial segregation in Kansas City.
Jamie Cordes, a current fellow and co-founder of InReach, noticed some similarities and differences between Kansas City and his hometown of Chicago, IL:
“KC is similar to my hometown, Chicago, because it still struggles to overcome its segregated landscape, but [KC] has engaged community members working on this issue. It’s different [here] in that its small size has allowed us to make quicker inroads into community stakeholders.”