Applications Open! Enroll for Summer 2027 at 2026 Tuition Pricing Until Sept 30
Build and pitch a venture in this 2-week entrepreneurship program for high school students at UC Berkeley.
Seats are limited, and this course may sell out for summer 2027. Enroll early to save your seat.
Course Description
A strong business idea starts with a problem worth solving. Students begin by looking for unmet needs, testing whether an idea creates real value and narrowing their thinking to one original venture concept.
Using the NFTE curriculum, they organize the idea with a Lean Business Model Canvas. Market research helps them define a target customer, estimate demand and understand buying patterns. Competitive analysis and a SWOT evaluation sharpen the value proposition, while branding and marketing workshops turn that strategy into a message customers can understand.
Students then examine fixed and variable costs, pricing, revenue models and the point where a business can break even. They assemble their research and decisions into a professional pitch deck, practice answering questions and revise their work through peer and instructor feedback. The course culminates in a Fast Pitch Challenge evaluated with NFTE’s official rubric.
Along the way, students consider how entrepreneurial choices affect customers and communities, adding responsibility and impact to the venture discussion.
This two-week full-day academy is part of Summer Discovery at UC Berkeley, held on the university’s campus. Students spend the full program focused on one intensive academy. The academy is available to residential and commuter students. Beyond class, students connect focused academic work with campus life, growing independence, and clearer direction about what students may want to study or pursue next.
What Will You Do?
• Identify an unmet need and shape it into an original business concept
• Organize the venture using a Lean Business Model Canvas
• Conduct market research and define a target customer
• Analyze competitors, complete a SWOT review and refine a value proposition
• Calculate costs, pricing, revenue and a basic break-even point
• Build a pitch deck and present the venture in a Fast Pitch Challenge
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
• Evaluate a real-world problem as a possible business opportunity
• Apply market, competition and financial evidence to a Lean Business Model Canvas
• Present and defend an original venture through a structured business pitch
Students leave with a course completion certificate, market research, a completed Lean Canvas, a professional pitch deck, deeper venture-building skills, and greater clarity about continued study, a possible major, or an entrepreneurship pathway.
Why Entrepreneurship Skills Matter?
Entrepreneurship teaches students to look closely at problems and ask what would make a solution useful, realistic and different. Customer research builds listening and evidence-gathering skills. A Lean Canvas requires students to organize connected decisions about need, solution, market, cost and revenue.
Developing a pitch also strengthens communication. Students must decide which evidence matters, explain their thinking clearly and respond to questions without losing the central idea. Those habits support school projects, leadership roles and future exploration across business, design, technology and social impact.
Who Should Attend?
This academy is for high school students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade and are curious about business, products, leadership, or solving problems that affect other people. It is a strong fit for students who enjoy creating ideas and want to learn how research and financial thinking can make those ideas stronger.
Participants should be ready to collaborate, interview or study potential customers, work with basic calculations, revise their thinking, and present to an audience. No finished business idea is required at the start. The academy guides students from problem identification through market research, venture modeling, and the final pitch, offering a practical way to test whether entrepreneurship or business study feels worth pursuing.
Recommended Program
Based on students surveyed in Summer Discovery’s 2026 UC Berkeley program.
Why UC Berkeley?
UC Berkeley gives high-school students the opportunity to pursue serious academic exploration in a campus environment shaped by scientific inquiry, new ideas, and an active connection to the wider Bay Area. The Berkeley Hills, distinctive architecture, and green spaces make the experience feel different from an ordinary school routine.
Students learn alongside peers, become more independent, and experience the pace and possibility of university life. The Bay Area context adds exposure to a region influenced by research, technology, entrepreneurship, culture, and public debate. For families, the value is not campus prestige alone. It is the combination of academic depth, community, and a student gaining clearer insight into the subjects, environments, and possible directions that genuinely motivate them.
After successfully finishing this course, you will be awarded a certification completion for your accomplishment.
*This is a preview, not what you will receive