WHY WE EXIST
Our vision is to create spaces, places, and culture to cultivate and create an abundance of problem solvers, innovators, and founders.
ILT Academy helps students deconstruct problems, ideas, innovations, and execution. They will ideate and innovate to see for themselves that ideas are easy. When a student graduates from the ILT Academy, they become even stronger problem solvers, innovators, and entrepreneurs.
WE BELIEVE…
Ryan Graham, Student Entrepreneur
“The best part of the class for me was when I could share my idea and have a community of people provide new insights and feedback for me to take in. The magic of this course is that it works to build your ability to gather and decipher meaningful customer feedback. When developing a business, success comes in the form of how much value you can maximize for your customers. I thought this course did a good job at making each entrepreneur dive into the value they plan on adding to their customers.”
Anna Maija, Lee Startup Entrepreneur
“As a founder who is often visioning “solo” this class offered me a sense of clarity and structure I’ve been lacking. I have done more in 2 hours than the past two months to push my idea forward!”
Patrick Osei, Startup Entrepreneur
“This class was insightful as it really laid down some basics in asking questions and finding answers to help refine business ideas.” “Having other aspiring entrepreneurs ask questions and give positive critic to the business ideas was definitely a plus. The pre-class work on ILT, while short, was great as an introduction. ILT Academy was really nicely designed and I think the tool will be HUGE in helping us navigate the entrepreneurship journey.”
Lucas Cunha, COO & Co-Founder Otrafy (A Techstars backed Company)
“Attending ILT’s customer discovery class was a game-changer for Otrafy. The skills that he shared with us helped us create our discovery funnel, which allowed us to find product-market fit and build a pipeline of priorities for our development that was based on our customer discovery.”
Allison Boerum, Co-Founder, Virtuwoof
“Having ILT Academy’s support in our business has been a great experience for Virtuwoof. The activities we completed in the Customer Discovery classes has added to the success in launching our business and strategy moving forward!”
Abby Henstein, Co-Founder, Virtuwoof
“Having ILT Academy’s support in our business has been a great experience for Virtuwoof. The activities we completed in the Customer Discovery classes has added to the success in launching our business and strategy moving forward!”
Danika H, Data Scientist
“I love how warm and welcoming and the ILT Academy team is. Their coaching is easy to follow, and they’ll help you quickly turn your startup goals into a reality. And as a bonus, they’ll connect you with a community of like-minded entrepreneurs, so you don’t have to go at this alone.”
What We Offer
ILT Academy offers certificate programs, workshops, tools, and online resources in Design Innovation and Startup education. We teach practical methods to help students deconstruct problems, innovation, and execution to position their projects for success.
INNOVATION TRACK
Design Innovation Education
Facilitated immersive learning opportunities for individuals, entrepreneurs, and professionals to get hands-on, practical experience, in order to understand and internalize the zero-to-one process.
Certificate Program
Innovation by Design
Learn and practice the processes and techniques to define and refine an idea’s core problem, solution, customer, and the potential opportunities surrounding that idea.
FORMAT: Activity-based workshop
DURATION: 5 weeks
TIME: 2.5 Hr/Week
Customer Discovery 101
Learn and practice the processes and techniques to develop your customer interviewing and discovery skills.
FORMAT: Activity-based workshop
DURATION: 1 Class
TIME: 2.0 Hr/Class
Certificate Program
Innovation for Transformational Leaders
Learn the processes and practices needed to build meaningful solutions in your community, organization or team.
FORMAT: Activity-based workshop
DURATION: 1 Class
TIME: 90 Min/Class
STARTUP TRACK
Startup Education
The ILT Academy has developed intensive educational experiences to help innovators and entrepreneurs who want to learn the most important skills needed to develop, define, validate, and launch startup ideas.
LaunchMN / DEED
Course 01: Customer Driven Innovation
101 | Opportunity Identification
Learn and practice the processes and techniques to define and refine an idea’s core problem, solution, customer, and the potential opportunities surrounding that idea.
FORMAT: Activity-based workshop
DURATION: 1 Class
TIME: 2.5 Hr/Class
**Virtual Event**
Orientation: Wed., July 29, 4:30 – 5:30pm
Class: Wed., August 5, 4-7pm
Certificate Program
Course 02: Customer Driven Innovation
Modules 201 – 205
Learn advanced customer discovery interview methods and skills needed to help gather better feedback and ensure you are solving the right problem.
FORMAT: Activity-based workshop
DURATION: 5 Weeks
TIME: 2.5 Hr/Week
LaunchMN / DEED
Course 03: The Lean Startup
Module 300-309
Students learn how to validate and present their lean startup idea, be connected with a mentor, and showcase their entrepreneurial talent.
FORMAT: Activity-based workshop
DURATION: 2.5 Months
TIME: 8 Hrs/Week
**Virtual Event**
Applications due: August 3, 2020, 6pm
Course start date: September 12, 2020
select your preferred location
Founding Sponsors & Academy Partners
Thanks to our founding sponsors Great North Labs and ILT Studios.
Our academy partners MN State, Launch MN, Red Wing Ignite, E1 Collaborative, Greater St. Cloud Development Corporation and Studio180.
We’d love to hear from you if you too would like to sponsor or partner with us! Please contact us to learn more.
Invest in your community of changemakers
With up to 800 million jobs at risk over the next 10 years due to automation and technology, ILT Academy is helping and collaborating with communities to think differently about how to educate, equip, and train the innovators, entrepreneurs, and changemakers of tomorrow.
Contact us about our Community Solutions
or just email us at academy@iltstudios.com