LaunchX is a world-wide entrepreneurial program for high school students with their flagship location at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in Boston, USA. The mission is to showcase students’ passions and ambitions to solve real-world problems by launching their own startup companies. Each year, LaunchX releases a problem for students to solve. This year’s was ‘Environmental Sustainability’.
This program offered the opportunity for Irawadee, Timofey, Polina and Uliana from BISP to start their own company, which created a technology-based product, from a design development perspective. Hence, they devoted considerable time in the Design Technology Department, developing their product using CAD, 3D-printing and also more traditional manufacturing techniques to bring a presentable prototype to fruition.
A successful live event featuring MIT was also held on campus in September 2017, in which students organised themselves into groups and worked on projects (Story here).
The BISP team, the first team to participate from Thailand, attended the LaunchX Club’s Regional Event in Shenzhen, China. Teams from all over Asia Pacific came together on February 25, 2018 and pitched their company to a panel of judges including the founder of LaunchX (MIT Engineer and Harvard Business School Alumni), an MIT Alumni from Japan, and an Angel investor from Hong Kong.
The British International School, Phuket team successfully competed against 13 prestigious teams, winning the Asia Region, and becoming one of the finalists to pitch at the Global Demo Day. That will be held at MIT in April.