Over the past few months my partners at X in a Box (Tony DeRose and Elyse Klaidman) and our team launched a brand new educational product/program: Story Xperiential in partnership with Pixar Animation Studios. In simple terms, our idea allows anyone to try their hand at working in different industries by building a prototype that industry would recognize – a kind of virtual apprenticeship open to all. With Pixar we used the storyreel (animated storyboard) as the prototype the students work on while Pixar employees assist as mentors. This program allows any student to mimic working in the real-world at top companies: it’s collaborative with weekly deadlines, ongoing peer feedback and culminates with a final online exhibition. I see it as a great prerequisite for pretty much everything students might do after.
Here is a 2 min overview of the program with actual product shots from the last 2 months:
The results of this program exceeded even my own rose coloured projections when we set out to build it. It has been an exhausting yet exhilarating learning experience. There is nothing quite like inventing a new experience from scratch and watching people walk through the door for the first time. We went live Oct 4th 2021 and our first Pilot wraps today with our first ever public exhibition of student work. The results of this program exceeded even my own rose coloured projections when we set out to build it. Over 90% of registered students completed the program with a final prototype (this involved 40 hours of work across 8 weeks with multiple weekly submissions). This kind of retention is unheard of in our industry. But the inevitable question arises: would it scale… ?
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