In the 2001 recession, my parents lost everything, marriage included.

My dreams felt like they were slipping away; I was depressed, angry and had nowhere to turn.

This is a story about how I turned crisis into opportunity by fusing education and entrepreneurship.

**Read On**

I was in a tough spot. We didn’t grow up wealthy, but I certainly had enough. I went to good schools, traveled internationally, and had all the tech and books I needed.

The crisis threw a wrench in everything.

Like many people today, I started to question the status quo.

Slowly, I started to get pissed off. The world felt like it was out to get me. I questioned if the “adults” in the room knew as much as they purported.

My grades slipped and my rebellious nature came out.

It's so easy to devolve into anger when times are tough.

My now-single mom was strong as hell. She held firm on a clear goal: get into a top-tier university or bust. She wouldn’t settle for anything less.

With my grades slipping, I knew I had to bolster my college applications with some extracurriculars to make this happen.

I was one nerdy-ass Indian boy

I was too small to play sports, so I took up Speech and Debate and the school newspaper.

Debate was the #1 extracurricular for getting into college and my ticket out of my family’s financial challenges.

I had a big problem: Money.

To succeed at debate, you need to travel to tournaments—and my mother couldn’t simply couldn’t afford it.

My friend proposed we raise the money thru a Speech and Debate camp. We’d charge $300 per student. It was my first ever “business.”

I was 13.

We were extremely naïve, but we had “product-market fit.”

Suburban parents want their kids to go to college too, and were willing to pay anything for their kids to have productive summers.

The camp grew, and soon we could no longer host it at my mom’s home.

Sounds like the dream? Ambitious young kids start a business that teaches other children in the neighborhood.

I went to my high school thinking: they’d be thrilled to host this camp. It is a win-win-win!

Except, that isn’t how our school saw it.

In fact, the school was extremely obstinate.

They did everything to shut down the camp. I was in the Principal’s office on a quarterly basis.

Why?

Our school system is a massive bureaucracy with many constituents. The kids are not #1 - there are dozens of competing interests.

They knew we'd learn more if we were doing valuable extracurriculars. But they didn’t care.

Having kids running businesses, managing money and hosting kids at the school was a liability.

Risk aversion kills entrepreneurship.

And schools teach risk aversion.

We were not to be deterred. The camp grew into a smashing success.

By my Senior year, we had 150+ students attending 4 different programs.

At least a dozen fellow students were working as tutors at the camp, and we were learning valuable skills that schools don’t teach.

I poured my heart into the camp for 5 years. When I graduated, the incoming class took over the camp.

Boom. Soon as I left, our school canceled the debate program.

W.T.F.

It boggles my mind they did this. HOW can you run a school and kill programs that help students learn?!

Why am I telling you this?

My school, Mission San Jose High School, was a top 100 public school in the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Jose_High_School

Most of the students were smart, driven with hard-working parents. We were privileged.

If at a school like that, the administration ignores student outcomes for bureaucratic reasons - what do you think happens at our inner city schools? What about our rural schools?

Our school system is a mess that has stopped focusing on student achievement.

This way of thinking doesn’t just affect a promising Indian boy’s dreams of entrepreneurship.

I don’t care about that.

I care about how it affects what textbooks we buy, what subjects we teach, the values we teach our kids and what teachers we promote and fire.

I don’t have all of the answers.

What I know is that recent events present a new opportunity.

Our education system is in chaos: universities are running out of money and public schools are forced to rethink every part of the student experience.

I also know that not all of the change will come from the inside. The system needs out-of-the-box thinkers. Entrepreneurs, dreamers, builders.

It’s time to build. It’s time to build a new education system that cares about students and encourages them to succeed.

I hope this inspires some of you.

There are amazing orgs building a world where our education system actually works, and doesn't leave student success to chance but takes it on fully.

Join them or start your own. Take the anger of the moment and let it fuel change!

Thanks to @sasyrae and @EllenRhymes for their help in crafting this.

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