The Lean Lab’s inaugural class of fellows presented at a Demo Day earlier this month.
More than 140 members of the committee gathered earlier this month for the inaugural Demo Day for Kansas City urban education incubator The Lean Lab.
“Demo Day was awesome,” The Lean Lab co-founder Katie Boody told SPN. “We pretty much sold out. It was a lot of energy and everything went smoothly.”
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Just because Demo Day is over though doesn’t mean Lean Lab fellows are headed out the door.
“Our original plan was to hook (the fellows) up with partnerships, have them go out on their own and give them minimal support so we could launch the second class next winter, but we quickly learned two things,” Boody said.
First, Boody says the team learned that running the incubator and recruiting new fellows is a lot more work than they originally anticipated. Also, while each project has established partnerships with the Kansas City Public School system, the fellows wanted a little more support.
So they’re staying and spending a little more time with The Lean Lab.
The initial group of fellows will remain with the program through the 2014-2015 school year and the program will welcome its second class next summer.
“I think, in a lot of ways, the best part is that (the fellows) realized so many educators have kind of been alone in their thoughts or dreams for so long that now that they’ve found like-minded people they don’t want to let that go,” Boody said.
Read more about The Lean Lab through our previous coverage:
- “Lean Lab doesn’t have KC schools’ cure-all, but it’s ready for a demo day”
- “Educators team up to create Lean Lab, change KC public school system.”