Athena Summer Innovation Institute
Athena Summer Innovation Institute
Create With Purpose
At the Athena Summer Innovation Institute, high school students explore entrepreneurship as a way to address challenges and create positive change. Offered in collaboration with Barnard’s Athena Center for Leadership, this program brings students together on our New York City campus to develop ideas with the potential to benefit others.
You’ll work with a team to develop a proposed venture, whether a business, nonprofit, or advocacy campaign. Starting with a problem you want to understand, you’ll consider the people it affects and how their needs can shape your approach. Together, you’ll turn an initial concept into a proposal with a clear purpose.
Through workshops, coaching, and feedback, you’ll explore the practical decisions involved in developing a venture. You’ll learn to explain your choices and refine your proposal as you encounter new perspectives. The program culminates in a team pitch, where you’ll present your work to your peers.
You don’t need an existing business idea to participate. Come ready to contribute your perspective, listen to others, and revise your thinking as you learn. Throughout the experience, you’ll practice the collaboration and communication involved in building something with a team.
Academic Experience
Understand Your Audience
Explore how research can help you assess an idea and understand the people it is intended to serve. Your team will use what you learn to question assumptions and refine the problem your venture addresses.
Develop Your Venture
Workshops introduce the practical choices behind a venture, from developing a product or service to planning its finances. Apply these lessons to your team’s proposal, considering how you would reach your audience and what resources you would need to move forward.
Build Your Pitch
Develop a presentation that explains your venture’s purpose and proposed approach. With coaching and feedback, you’ll practice communicating your ideas clearly and making a case for your team’s decisions. The final pitch brings together your research, planning, and presentation skills.
Academic Outcomes
Your participation in ASII will be recognized with a Certificate of Completion. An individual Program Director evaluation will document your work and be added to your Barnard applicant record upon program completion.
Entrepreneurship in New York
Explore how entrepreneurship takes shape across New York City. Site visits and conversations with women entrepreneurs offer a look inside businesses and introduce you to people who have built ventures of their own.
Hear about the decisions behind their work and how they’ve responded when an idea met an unexpected challenge. These conversations offer a closer look at how founders balance their original vision with what they learn from the people they serve. You’ll consider how an organization’s purpose influences its everyday operations and choices as it grows.
Bring questions from your own experience in ASII. Explore how a founder decided an idea was worth pursuing, what changed along the way, and what they learned from approaches that didn’t succeed. Bring those insights back to your team as you consider how to strengthen your proposal.
Foundations for Well-Being
All ASII students participate in Foundations for Well-Being, a required series focused on the transition to college. These sessions offer time to consider how you’ll manage new responsibilities and build routines that support your learning and well-being.
As you prepare for greater independence, you’ll reflect on what helps you feel connected and supported, including when and how to seek help.
Plan Your ASII Summer
ASII runs June 28 – July 16, 2027, with residential and commuter options.
Prepare to apply by reviewing the application requirements and exploring tuition and financial aid. Take a closer look at student life to decide which experience fits your summer plans.
Summer 2027 applications open December 1, 2026.