About Us
We deliver real-world learning opportunities, where young people build their own ventures, learn from experienced founders, and step into the world of innovation.
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We believe every young person deserves a different kind of education, one that helps them find their passion, build real-world skills and get ahead of the curve.
Our History
Future Minds started in 2018, built by a student who almost dropped out of high school at 16 years old, and then found the thing that kept him in. Every program we've run since has been an attempt to put that moment in front of students on purpose rather than by accident.
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Future Minds started with 100 students across five Victorian high schools. It brought together innovators, founders, and entrepreneurs for a flagship event.
Young people opened the first Future Minds chapters and ran them with our support. They led place-based initiatives in their own schools and built businesses that solved problems they could see.
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hybrid classroom
When COVID closed classrooms, Future Minds opened new doors online. This included leading a 48-hour hackathon and revitalising a cancelled careers fair for 10,000 young people. What could have ended us became the year we proved our model worked anywhere.
national presence
Future Minds expands out of Victoria and into schools across NSW, SA, and QLD. It works with federal and state government to shape future-ready curriculum that is now embedded across high schools across Australia.
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Future Minds launches its consulting arm, Gen Z Labs, working with Fortune 500 companies on how to reach and engage young talent.
This revenue is redirected to help fund our school entrepreneurship programs.
the Asia Pacific
Future Minds expands beyond Australia and into programs across Korea, Thailand and China. It works with government agencies on how their education systems teach young people to build.
Future Minds reaches over 13,000 young people through our technology and entrepreneurship programs, from first robotics to real ventures. Backed by new national partnerships, we set out to scale deep, lasting impact.
Future Minds launches the 10x Fund, a microgrant fund for ventures built by young people in its programs. It closes the gap between a pitch that wins a room and a business that keeps trading after everyone goes home.
Our Impact
We've spent almost a decade putting young people in front of industry. We're youth-founded and youth-led, and our programs are mapped to the curriculum, run in regional towns, low-income suburbs and multicultural communities across Australia and the Asia Pacific.
Supporting students and professionals on their journey to growth and success.
have learned to innovate, build and launch their ideas.
giving students practical, future-focused learning from day one.
including experienced angel investors, founders and operators who guide them through the journey.
backing us to create high-energy learning opportunities for young people.
Collaborating with institutions and organizations to expand learning opportunities.
Collaborating with institutions and organizations to expand learning opportunities.
including the regional and remote communities who rarely get access to opportunities like this.
delivering learning experiences that inspire confidence and growth.
Our communities
We believe every young person deserves the chance to build, wherever they're from.
That's why we work in regional, remote and low-income communities most programs never reach. Tap a region to see if we’re near you!
Perth's average conceals a wide gap between its river suburbs and its outer corridors. We work in the corridors, where the pathway out is least visible.
Adelaide's north — Playford, Salisbury, Elizabeth — carries some of the country's deepest disadvantage, averaged into a city that reads as comfortable. We work in the north.
Toowoomba sits below the national average, and further still from the pathways young people in the capitals take for granted. Distance shouldn't decide ambition.
The Darling Downs and South West scores 969, thirty-one points below average. The nearest university is hours away. Most young people have never met a founder.
Behind one score sit Labrador, Coombabah and Southport — well below the city they're averaged into. Talent is spread evenly here. Opportunity isn't.
Geelong scores 1,007. But Norlane, Corio and Whittington are among Victoria's most under-resourced communities, and in parts of Corio half of young people aren't in work or study.
One of Australia's most advantaged cities — an average that hides Broadmeadows, Dandenong and the western corridor. We work where it doesn't reach.
Brisbane's average is carried by its inner suburbs. We work in the outer north and south, where university and business aren't an obvious next step.
Sydney has the widest gap between rich and poor of any Australian capital. We work at the end where a postcode still decides a starting line.
Newcastle scores 1,012 — fine on paper. That average is built from suburbs decades apart in opportunity. We work in the ones it lifts up rather than describes.
The Sunshine Coast scores 1,022, carried by its coastal north. Inland, fewer young people see university or entrepreneurship as available to them. That's where we work.
Our Team
Future Minds is run by a team of passionate people who came up through the same programs we now deliver. We are founders, educators and organisers who think young people are ready for more than they are usually given.
Our commitment
We're a certified social enterprise, independently verified by Social Traders, Australia's national standard. The profits we earn flow back into the Future Minds Foundation, funding programs for the young people who need them most.
Every dollar we make has a job to do: reaching another young person who might otherwise be overlooked.
Our Recognition
We've been recognised across Australia and the Asia Pacific for leading innovation, education and changing young lives. Here are a few of the most recent:
Deakin Community Youth Services Award
100 Excellence Actions
Whitehorse Young Business of the Year
7NEWS Group Achievement in the Community Award
Impact reports
Every year since 2021, audited and published in full including the programs that didn't work.
Our industry network
We have industry mentors and experts who offer personal guidance, business advice and academic support.
These are Australia’s most experienced founders, investors and partners who show up for young people every day. Together, they open doors most students never get to walk through, turning ambition into real opportunity.
Supporting ambitious learners on their journey toward growth, opportunity, and long-term success.
Our Approach
We combine theory, teamwork, and real-world practice to help young people learn entrepreneurship by actually doing it. No single way of learning does the whole job, so we draw on all five across every program.
You learn the concepts, principles and frameworks that sit under good entrepreneurship. This happens through explanation and discussion. It usually means listening, reading or observing before you act. In practice, this means we:
Teach core frameworks like customer discovery and business modelling in short, focused workshops
Use real company stories to show how a principle plays out in the real world
Keep the theory tight, so students spend most of their time applying it rather than sitting through it
You learn by making sense of what happened. Students step back to understand why something worked or failed, so the experience turns into capability they keep. In practice, this means we:
Build reflection into each stage, so students name what they learned and what they would change
Ask students to document their pivots, so the thinking behind a decision stays visible
Close the program with a structured review that connects the experience to skills they carry forward
You learn with other people. The work centres on teamwork, discussion and co-creation, where participants share ideas, solve problems and make decisions together. In practice, this means we:
Build every venture in a team, so students learn to divide work and work through disagreement
Run structured peer feedback, so students sharpen each other's ideas
Bring teams from different schools together, so students learn beyond their own room
You take what you have learned and put it to work for real. Students apply their skills to their own venture, under genuine stakes, deadlines and audiences, where the outcome actually counts. In practice, this means we:
Set students loose on their own venture against a real deadline and a real audience
Put them in front of real investors and industry panels, where the pitch has real consequences
Ask them to make real business decisions with real trade-offs, not practice runs
You learn by doing. It is hands-on and active. Students create, build and practise skills in a tangible way, so the learning is grasped through the act itself rather than just talked about. In practice, this means we:
Run hands-on challenges where the goal is to practise a skill, not to win
Have students build and test in low-stakes settings so they can try things and get them wrong
Focus on the making itself, so a concept is felt in the hands and not just heard
Our Values
Everything we build starts with a belief that young people don't need to wait for permission to solve real problems. These values shape how we design our programs, choose our partners, and show up in every classroom and community we work with.
Stay Curious
We start with questions, not answers. Our default is to explore an idea properly rather than assume we already know how it works, and that applies to our own programs as much as it does to anyone else's.
Challenge the Norm
We question the way things are usually done, because that is where the new possibilities are hiding. When we take a convention apart and look at what is underneath it, we almost always find something better on the other side.
People First
We build with young people, not for them. We listen to lived experience before we design anything, and we hold to the principle that nothing about us happens without us.
Relentless Ambition
We aim higher than is comfortable and we go after it with determination. We would rather attempt something ambitious and fall short than set a target we already know we can hit.
Shape the Future
We build things designed to outlast us. Every decision gets weighed against whether it still holds up in ten years, not just whether it works this term.
