Noble Impact students present their startup idea at an Innovate 2 Educate event held in conjunction with EAST Initiative at the Clinton School of Public Service.
Noble Impact, the Little Rock nonprofit that introduces social entrepreneurship to primary- and secondary-school students and partners with Innovate Arkansas, will join Little Rock Nine member Minnijean Brown Trickey on Saturday for a discussion of education opportunity gaps facing minority and under-represented students.
Trickey was one of nine black students who successfully integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The students became known as the Little Rock Nine, and Trickey has been a prominent civil-rights activist since.
Saturday’s event — “Noble Impact: Addressing the Education Opportunity Gap through Student Voice, Featuring Civil Rights Activist Minnijean Brown Trickey” — will take place in the third-floor ballroom of the Mosaic Templars Center at Ninth and Broadway in downtown Little Rock. The public portion of the event is free and begins at 11:15 a.m.
Those interested in attending are asked to register here.
Trickey will discuss her experiences with Noble students, who then will break into teams for a civic innovation challenge in which they will collaborate on solutions to persisting barriers faced by minority and under-represented students.
Team presentations and feedback will begin at 11:15. Feedback will be provided by:
- Skip Rutherford, dean of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service
- Jason Hamilton, executive director of Arkansas Commitment
- Angela Galvis Schnuerle, Little Rock attorney and Partner of the Immigration Law Center
The Noble Impact cirriculum currently is used in the elementary, middle- and high-schools at eStem public charter school in downtown Little Rock.
“Noble Impact is a forum for students to lend their voices, ideas, and solutions to the world’s biggest challenges,” said Noble’s Vice President of Product Erica Swallow. “We, in Little Rock, have a deep-rooted history with racial segregation, having once been in the national spotlight for denying nine students their Constitutional rights to an equal education. We are honored to have Minnijean Brown Trickey to share her story and the advancements she’s seen in her lifetime.”
Swallow said that many students still lack equal access to education based on race and socio-economic background and other factors. Determinants of success such as graduation rates, college enrollment and expulsion rates remain starkly different for students from different backgrounds, and students will be able to ask how lack of access to health-care, food, basic utilities, Internet and other resources that enable a healthy existence can affect a students ability to learn and thrive, she said.
“Students will be in the drivers’ seat this Saturday to direct the conversation and search for solutions,” she said. “We believe that when students are given the opportunity to create and solve, they are unstoppable.”
Noble Impact has taken student teams to Startup Weekend events and even launched the inaugural High School Startup Weekend in addition to two Innovate 2 Educate events.
Swallow and Trickey are scheduled speakers for Friday’s TedxMarkhamSt event from the Ron Robinson Theater in Little Rock’s River Market District.
More information on the Noble Impact event is available here.
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