At AlligatorZone, a parent or guardian must accompany the child or teenager. AlligatorZone is one place where parents can take their kids along, after a day’s work, to get their startup fix. We half-jokingly refer to AlligatorZone as the startup event for kids and youth, where they can take their parents along. Here are some benefits we have noticed:
- AlligatorZone keeps the youth, ranging in ages 7 through 17, and older, deeply engaged in understanding how a local entrepreneur is attempting to solve a pressing problem (or a not-so-pressing problem).
- AlligatorZone inspires the young minds through honest conversations with startup founders. Parents also actively participate, and are encouraged to do so. We heard that in the City of Mountain View, California, parents report that they and their children now have a new shared experience to talk about at home since they attend AlligatorZone together.
- Kids and youth can relate to the startup founders. For example, Jake Heller of Casetext told the audience that he went to the high school right there in that very neighborhood in Sunnyvale.
- Since the startup founders who show up at AlligatorZone are really unassuming and give of their time with a sense of humility, kids and teens in the audience can sense how approachable they are, and know that even they can aspire to make a difference in the world by becoming an entrepreneurial problem-solver.
- Kids and youth may just find that raison d’être which eludes most of us until much later in life. Learning through observation that even they can make life enjoyable and meaningful, through making others’ lives better is a priceless benefit of AlligatorZone.
Click here to read further about additional benefits that accrue through our AlligatorZone Ambassador initiative.
AlligatorZone®, where kids meet cool startups™, got its start as a vibrant face-to-face community that brings together startups and school-age kids for a peek into the minds of the startup founders who are creating the future. AlligatorZone® now offers uniquely inspirational and deeply engaging Learning & Development opportunities for lifelong learners from school and college students to working professionals and organizational stakeholders in industry.
