If you had told me two years ago that one day I would be attempting to start a business called Launchpad and offer after-school classes to kids on different topics within technology that represent areas offered in the real world, I would have definitely laughed that one off. I mean, when I started teaching I didn’t even know if it was for me. It was definitely not the career I wanted to pursue for the rest of my life. Like, don’t get me wrong, I love seeing kids grow and challenge themselves, but teaching was always more seen as a way to fill in time while I found out what I really wanted to pursue in life.

This could be partly why I am so passionate about Launchpad.

I mean, we have so many youth leaving high school unsure of what career they want to pursue. Some head to university and end up changing courses after the first year or dropping out altogether. Others take a gap year and go travel to “find themselves”. When I was in high school, I was so unsure of what career path I wanted to take that it wasn’t until Year 13 that I decided to do teaching, and that was largely because a website told me that it would be my best fit. Like, I didn’t even get to experience it, I was just told I would work well in that environment. So it is understandable to see why so many kids leave high school with a confused direction.

But what if we could clear that confusion.

What if we could set children up while they are young, and give them the opportunity to discover what real world path they would want to take. And I don’t mean something general like ‘technology’, I mean something specific like ‘Website Design’,  ‘Game Developer’, or ‘Video Producer’. What if they could could discover that while they were a child, then that becomes the pad that they can launch themselves from.

That sounds like a better alternative to what we currently have, where many kids leave high school still looking for the pad to which they can plant their feet on.

No, I would rather that the launchpad was found by kids. 

So, here I am, taking the leap to start a business centered around giving children the ability to use software and programs that are currently being used in real world professions. I know, it’s a journey. We won’t get their overnight. But we can start with the basics and launch from there.

I mean, technology has come a long way in recent years and there are many programs with such simplistic user interfaces that children can now begin to use them to produce outcomes and results that are similar to things on the market at the moment.

And that is what opens the door to opportunity for our future kids.

That is the vision that Launchpad rests on: To open a world of opportunities for our children.  

Grant Spicer
Launchpad Founder