Yesterday, Chalkbeat published an article highlighting the incredible work of the students and faculty at the High School of Art and Design through a semester-long program to learn how to sell their artwork and designs online through Etsy shops. You can read the full piece, which highlights some amazing student profiles here.
I'm really glad this initiative is getting attention because I believe Principal Max Re-Sugiura and his team are pioneering a new model—one that not only empowers students to actively engage with industry partners but also exemplifies the kind of cross-sector collaboration that will shape the future of both learning and work.
Through my ongoing partnership with Tech:NYC, I had the privilege of learning and working alongside this school throughout as the initiative took shape over this fall semester. I've been blown away by the school’s commitment to making this vision a reality.
As the article notes, the school didn't design and deploy this curriculum in a vacuum. It was designed through deeply intentional partnerships, each contributing a key piece to the entrepreneurial learning cycle.
Here's the breakdown:
Partnership Round-Up
It takes a village to come up with creative solutions to complex problems, like how to best prepare students today for careers tomorrow. Here's what made the initiative at the High School of Art and Design possible.
Public Sector Partners:
New York City Public Schools facilitated initial programmatic design through their career-connected learning program, FutureReadyNYC
Nonprofit Partners:
Tech:NYC helped bridge the gap between tech industry partners and the educational staff
Playlab provided educator-friendly AI frameworks and training, which helped adapt complex content into a format that was more accessible and engaging for both students and teachers
Private Sector Partners:
Etsy helped the school better understand the most important components of setting up online shops, and shared many materials from their Etsy seller handbook for the school to repurpose
Ridgewood Savings Bank let students open bank accounts (a requirement for any online seller) for free
Lawyers from Proskauer Rose LLP and MetLife talked about copyright law
Building intentional partnerships like this isn’t easy, but the payoff is significant. I believe it also offers a model for rethinking problem-solving frameworks across other sectors.
As Mariana Mazzucato argues in Mission Economy, solving society’s most complex challenges requires creative cross-sector collaborations—not siloed efforts. The Artist Youth Entrepreneurship Program at the High School of Art and Design is a powerful example of this approach in action.
The Role of AI as a Translator
The Chalkbeat piece briefly mentions AI, but its role in this initiative cannot be overstated—it served as the “glue” that made many of these creative collaborations possible.
As I’ve written before, one of the most powerful ways to think about AI is as an interpretation layer—a third-party, unbiased translator that bridges gaps between different stakeholders.
In this case, AI helped translate industry knowledge into student-friendly learning experiences, making complex entrepreneurial concepts more accessible and actionable in the classroom. This kind of adaptive, real-time support is exactly how AI can be leveraged in education—not as a replacement for human expertise, but as a tool to enhance and streamline collaboration across sectors.
AI also makes it possible to scale initiatives like this in a way that was never possible before. Rather than relying on one-off modules for how a single school might engage with an industry partner, tools like Playlab enable anyone (teachers, students, or industry leaders) to create reusable micro-apps that can be customized and scaled across a wide variety of work-based learning experiences.
AI is driving the single greatest upskilling event of our generation. Rather than stick to our silos, AI invites us to rethink learning beyond the classroom—and to bring businesses and schools together in new ways. It’s an opportunity for industry partners to re-engage with education and co-create the future of work.
After all, the best way to prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow is to give them real exposure to how work gets done today.
With so much uncertainty in the labor market right now, it’s more important than ever to form cross-sector partnerships between public and private institutions That’s why I’ve been so inspired by this innovative new model of work-based learning, pioneered by the team at the High School of Art and Design, which encouraged hundreds of design students to learn entrepreneurial foundations by setting up Etsy shops https://hardmodefirst.xyz/from-classroom-to-career-how-cross-sector-collaboration-is-redefining-work-based-learning