Through Project Invent, teams of high school students work alongside their community partners to create a working product for social impact causes. During this process, students present their social impact ideas and product prototypes to a group of professionals working in a variety of sectors through a mid-year event called Idea Review. These volunteers provide students with feedback to guide them towards furthering their impact and improving their product ideas through their expertise in product, technology, business, marketing, design, hardware, entrepreneurship, and more.

What is Project Invent?

Project Invent is a national nonprofit working with high schools across the country to get students inventing tech for social good. We encourage students to choose problems in their community that they’re passionate about solving, and we teach them the design thinking, engineering, and entrepreneurship skills to be able to solve those problems.

Giving Back to Students

One of our Idea Reviewers, Priyanka, has continuously given back to the community through Project Invent. She is an employee at Microsoft in the Silicon Valley who wishes she could have had more opportunities to complete hands-on learning during high school. 

"I wanted to give back because there were so many people who gave me guidance and mentored me. My main takeaway from volunteering at Idea Review was seeing how the students wanted to learn and grow," said Priyanka. 

She believes she is fortunate to have the career she has right now, and she aims to give back the knowledge she has gained through her meaningful work in technology. Project Invent was appealing because it was focused toward high school students, and she wanted the opportunity to help students extend their minds since they are often not given freedom due to many rules and textbooks to follow in traditional education. Through the movement with PI, Priyanka has been able to contribute back to her community and foster young minds by growing their problem-solving skills and interest in technology.

Investing in the Future Generation

Through her experience as an Idea Reviewer, Priyanka has determined the type of impact one is able to give and has had many takeaways by working with the students such as a can-do attitude, growth mindset, and not being afraid of failure. When you grow up, you are more afraid of failure, but she has learned from the students that there is always another solution if things do not work out. She has seen firsthand how they want to make a difference with their products and by observing their learning, Priyanka also grew as a person. PI is an innovative model because it invests in the students’ learning experience by teaching them essential, hands-on skills in entrepreneurship, design thinking, and engineering as well as community building.

Idea Review Team Feedback

The following video is from last year’s Idea Review where volunteers provided technical and product market fit feedback. The project team is Team U-Brella at GALA (Girls Academic Leadership Academy) in Los Angeles.