The origin story of AlligatorZone® is rooted in the philosophy that we can all learn how to learn from children and thus become lifelong learners. Please scroll down for more on our altruistic roots.
No Real Alligators At AlligatorZone®
AlligatorZone® has its origins as a community of life-long learners, organizers of community gatherings of school-age kids and their families to explore the exciting future that highly accomplished innovators and startup entrepreneurs are creating.
The exposure gives students an idea of how to start preparing for economic relevance and professional mastery in a rapidly transforming world. AlligatorZone® has recently added more programs and curricula for building a pathway to fulfilling work for lifelong learners.
The Mission of AlligatorZone®
Fellow learners, at AlligatorZone®, our raison d’etre is to help you look for yours. The mission of AlligatorZone® is to help learners find their calling and prepare for the future of work, by learning from innovators who are creating that future.
Watch a video collage of how AlligatorZone’s various programs have been received by families across the nation over the years.
Videos from our event-program, where kids meet cool startups
Watch the playlist of post-event video interviews below to get an idea of the exciting event-program brought by AlligatorZone to the community, in cooperation with various public libraries.
Join Our Community of Lifelong Learners
What began as a community gathering in public libraries to inspire children, has evolved into a unique Learning & Development organization using storytelling to serve learners in schools, colleges and industry.
Enjoy Our Free Public Event-Program
We began AlligatorZone with free family-friendly startup events in public libraries. They continue to this day. Our free public event-program consists of carefully curated conferences for children to enjoy as a shared experience with their parents. Since 2014, AlligatorZone® has been inspiring communities by organizing children’s conferences, featuring exciting startups that are presented personally by their founders, to a rather young audience of kids and teens (ages 7-17), and accompanying families and educators. Close to 150 unique startups have been carefully curated, coached and showcased to young audiences in 20 communities from Silicon Valley to South Florida. AlligatorZone®‘s programs are usually held in public libraries, and also in schools or community centers, at the request of parents, children, teachers, librarians and civic leaders in various communities. Register here to attend an event here.
Kids Learn At The Frontiers of Innovation
Alligator is a metaphor for the many lurking problems that can sink a startup. At AlligatorZone®‘s original events, the young members of the audience help the presenting startup founders cross the AlligatorZone successfully in free-wheeling discussions. The kids and teens learn through honest conversations with startup founders, voiced opinions and questions driven by children’s innate curiosity, while the entire community celebrates the local entrepreneurs and participates in local innovation in a unique and exciting way. Through our observations of these interactions, we have developed learning modules for use in high schools, colleges and in industry.
Grow With Us
AlligatorZone® is growing along with its young members. In 2016, AlligatorZone®, with the goal of adding more structure to its alternative learning environments, created an Academy for designing summer camps, curricula for alternative learning, and after-school enrichment programs. The Academy now offers unique learning programs to prepare teenagers, college students with the skills they will need to become standouts. The next step in our evolution is to prepare working professionals and industry stakeholders become lifelong learners and enjoy doing it. AlligatorZone® has created a separate division to focus on the needs of educators in school systems. Last, but not the least, a third division is focused on continuing education for large corporations and other organizations to educate their stakeholders.
Join A Magical Movement
We have been told often, that at AlligatorZone® where kids meet cool startups, something magical happens when kids and teens meet and have honest conversations with startup founders. AlligatorZone®‘s programs are known to have positively impacted and inspired participants of all ages, 7 and older. As they interact with local entrepreneurs at AlligatorZone®‘s events, kids and teens, and their accompanying parents of varying socioeconomic backgrounds get to gather in a public space and dream big, in a shared experience as a family. That’s powerful.
Join our movement to inspire future leaders, whether at school, college or in your organization. Contact us today.
