Launching youth entrepreneurship
Even as a teenager, Laurie Stach ’06 says, she had a “crazy ambition to take on the world and solve problems.” At MIT, she realized she wasn’t the only one. “Adults always see these youth who are good at math and science and say, ‘You’re going to do great things—someday,’” says Stach. “Meanwhile, traditional education…
Laurie Stach, a 2006 graduate of MIT, has always harbored a "crazy ambition" to "take on the world and solve problems," she says. During her time at MIT, she observed that "adults always see these youth who are good at math and science and say, 'You're going to do great things—someday,'" but traditional education was not adequately preparing them for the real world.
In response, Stach founded LaunchX in 2012, a for-profit entrepreneurship program designed to help high school students develop practical skills. The program operates through an intensive summer experience, where students form teams, identify a problem, and build an actual product or service. These ventures are then taken to market, often generating preorders or even revenue before the four-week program concludes.
Raised in Texas and the Carolinas, Stach earned her mechanical engineering degree at MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2011. She launched the first summer program on MIT's campus, enrolling 30 students in 2013, and has since seen the initiative grow significantly. Today, LaunchX serves approximately 500 students annually through both in-person and online programs.
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