COSTA MESA, CA — Base 11 has partnered best-selling author and success guru Darren Hardy to provide some of his most sought-after executive training sessions to community college students who are interested in becoming innovators in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.
The STEM Entrepreneur program, featuring Hardy along with other business and STEM experts, begins this month at Skyline College in the Bay Area and at the University of California, Irvine in January, with more colleges across the country expected to begin offering the program in 2017.
Hardy is a keynote speaker, executive coach, former publisher of SUCCESS magazine, and best-selling author of books including The Compound Effect. Throughout his career, he has interviewed world-renowned innovators like Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, then distilled their personal habits for success and entrepreneurial techniques to train others.
Unlike the executives Hardy usually coaches, the trainees in this course will be high potential, low resource community college students — many from fields traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields, like women, African Americans and Hispanics. Base 11, which aims to help connect these students to degrees, careers, and business ventures in STEM, partnered with Hardy to develop a semester-long STEM Entrepreneur curriculum that helps community college students transform their classroom learning into marketable business ventures.
“It’s exciting for me to work with Base 11 to reach an entirely new audience of potential innovators,” said Hardy, who has set a goal of helping produce a million new entrepreneurs. “I’m honored to help these college students–all of whom have tremendous abilities but haven’t had access to the right resources in their lives–unlock their true potential.”
In the semester-long STEM Entrepreneur curriculum, Hardy covers the entrepreneurial mindset, 21st century leadership skills, marketing and sales strategies, as well as productivity strategies. Other course modules will include the lean startup, developing a business plan, advanced pitching strategies and skills to secure funding.
“Darren Hardy’s modules take Base 11’s game-changing STEM Entrepreneur program for college students to a whole new level,” said Landon Taylor, CEO of Base 11. “I can’t wait to see the looks on the faces of these students, as their entrepreneurial aspirations get transformed from hope into reality. ”
Additional experts in STEM entrepreneurship and innovation who are contributing to the Base 11 STEM Entrepreneur program include Blair Evans, tech entrepreneur and Fab Academy guru; faculty, staff and students from the UCI Henry Samueli School of Engineering; Richard Sudek, Chairman Emeritus, Tech Coast Angels and director, UCI Applied Innovation; Brandon Andrews, national casting director, ABC’s Shark Tank; and Landon Taylor, CEO, Base 11.
Base 11 focuses on high-potential students who are determined to succeed yet lack the access and the resources that are needed to level the playing field with their counterparts at Ivy League-level institutions. Base 11 aims to ensure that all students are equipped with the tools and support necessary to develop as STEM entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs of the 21st century, with the end-goal of catapulting them into higher-paying jobs, acceptance and scholarship opportunities at top-tier universities, and direct access to the funding and mentorship needed to launch the business ventures they create while in the program. The purpose is not only to benefit the students, but also to expand and strengthen the American middle class.
Base 11 is a non-profit public benefit corporation focused on empowering high-potential, low-resource community college students with hands-on education and training in STEM-related enterprises. Base 11 partners with community colleges and their feeder high schools to provide high-potential, low-resource students with real-world training, experience and mentorship in STEM-related enterprises, delivering to employers a prerecruitment pipeline of well-trained, highly skilled STEM employees and entrepreneurs. For more information, please visit www.Base11.com. Base 11 is a DBA of the Center for Innovations in Education, a non-profit 501(c) 3 – IRS exemption EIN# 26- 4365936.