VenturEd GlobalExpanding opportunity, and understanding what helps young people thrive

I.

The underestimated are also underresearched.

Young people whose potential is overlooked deserve meaningful opportunities, and a place in the evidence that shapes their futures. VenturEd pairs early work experience with sustained mentorship and youth-led research: it helps young people build relationships, contribute to real projects and explore their interests, then follows their paths to learn how early support relates to later education, employment and professional development.

Research is central to the work. What VenturEd learns is meant to improve the opportunities open to the next generation.

II.

The fellowship, and the study around it

The VenturEd Fellowship places young people in remote startup internships of six to eight weeks, in research, engineering, design, marketing and operations. It forms part of a two-year study across four cohorts and hundreds of participants aged 14 to 20, with follow-up that continues after the internship ends, as participants move between education, further work and the start of their careers.

The study looks at household income, school type and access to professional networks alongside different forms of mentorship: from larger groups sharing a role or project to small internships where each participant has several points of contact. It asks how group size, mentor availability, continuity of support and real responsibility relate to where young people go next.

Its questions concern career direction, further employment and education, confidence at work, and access to advice and introductions. Comparing experiences across backgrounds shows whom each approach serves, and how support might reach the people most often overlooked.

III.

The Opportunities Project

The Opportunities Project carries the same aim into community career support. VenturEd reports more than 9,000 connections to first-job opportunities, with partner job listings as the starting point for personal guidance.

Most of that guidance happens in person: talking through a role, preparing an enquiry, finding a next step. VenturEd's model for community career centres would bring it to Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, with libraries, community centres and public universities at the heart of local access.

IV.

Youth-led research

A youth-led research team brings participants' own experiences into the questions VenturEd asks. By keeping relationships going beyond a single internship, it aims to build a substantial evidence base on early-career development that mentors, employers, schools and community organisations can use to widen opportunity.