Ten years ago this December, I stood in Philadelphia at the Reimagine Education Awards and presented The Bootstrapping Checklist, a free Creative Commons resource for guided iterative inquiry in the classroom.

The idea was simple. Entrepreneurial skills like resilience, focus, commitment, reflection, and respectful collaboration grow through practice, and every student can build them. Kaizen, the Japanese practice of continuous improvement, sits at the centre, and validated data guides each design decision.

A decade later, my Grade 7 students still love it. They use it to plan their projects, work through tough team meetings, and speak to each other like professionals pursuing a shared vision. The tools in their hands have changed a great deal since 2016. The checklist has held up because it teaches process, and process carries over to every new tool that arrives.

Keeping it open made that possible. Thank you to everyone who has helped make it better. It remains free for anyone to use. To every student who has worked through it, your passion are the reason it exists.

P.S. Innovation in Education has been shortlisted in the Nurturing Employability category for the 2026 QS Reimagine Education Awards.

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