College students who want to start a company in Atlanta have plenty of places to begin. High school students have far fewer. InnovateATL wants to change that.
Founded by a team of Metro Atlanta high school students, InnovateATL gives aspiring teen entrepreneurs a platform to turn ideas into action. Students test their concepts with real people, learn from experienced founders and investors, and take their first steps into Atlanta's startup ecosystem. For the founders, the mission grew out of a gap they saw firsthand. Plenty of their peers wanted to build companies, but few had a real chance to take an idea from concept to validation to pitch.
“Atlanta has a growing startup ecosystem, but most of those opportunities are built for college students and established founders. We kept seeing high schoolers, including our own peers, with ambitious ideas but very few opportunities to actually test them. We started InnovateATL because we believe students shouldn’t have to wait until college to start building real companies and gaining hands-on entrepreneurial experience.”
Ten hours to build a startup
The organization’s first event put that mission to the test. On Sept. 20, more than 70 teams from more than 10 schools filled West Forsyth High School in Cumming, Georgia, for a 10-hour startup competition. More than 200 people attended.
Teams were challenged to build venture-backable startups addressing a problem close to home: making the movement of people, goods, or services across Atlanta and Georgia dramatically more efficient. From transportation to logistics, students developed business concepts around challenges facing their own communities before presenting their solutions to a panel of local judges.
Teams built venture concepts around a real-world challenge, then made a one-page summary and a pitch deck for a panel of local judges. Midway through the day, organizers dropped in a live crisis prompt that forced every team to rethink its business model on the spot. Along the way, students practiced customer discovery, market analysis, business modeling and pitching under pressure while competing for more than $1,000 in prizes.
“What stood out to us most was the breadth, depth, and quality of the ideas students developed. In just ten hours, these high schoolers went from researching real problems and identifying opportunities to developing business models, building pitch decks, and presenting their solutions in front of investors and industry professionals. Seeing what they were capable of in such a short time reinforced why we started InnovateATL. We want to make that opportunity accessible to students everywhere, not just Atlanta.”
Building with Atlanta
InnovateATL doesn't plan to grow alone. Its inaugural event brought together a combination of financial and in-kind support, alongside judges and representatives from organizations including Georgia Tech CEISMC, Georgia Tech CREATE-X, Tech Square Ventures, Redline Ventures, Engage, and other local education and entrepreneurship partners. These connections gave high school students exposure to the people and institutions shaping Atlanta's startup ecosystem. For a teenager with an idea, those introductions turn programs like CREATE-X from a name on a website into a real next step.
“Working with organizations like Georgia Tech CREATE-X and Tech Square Ventures shows high schoolers that Atlanta’s startup and venture capital ecosystem is accessible to them, too. But our vision goes beyond exposure. We want InnovateATL to become the starting point of a pipeline where student founders can validate their ideas, connect with experienced mentors and investors, and eventually access the resources and capital needed to grow real companies. If a student builds something exceptional at one of our events, we want to help them take that next step.”
The team plans to deepen those ties with an invitational for high school founders in Atlanta. It’s also leading a national expansion of its model and working with the Forsyth County Board of Education on an event built specifically for middle school students.