The Young Innovators Team: Women Who Move The City

Meet Marnie Forestieri and the Young Innovators Team

January 3, 2024

Orlando Magazine Staff,

THE YOUNG INNOVATORS TEAM

“The most important component of quality and excellence in early education is to have a stable, trained, and well-educated workforce,” explains Young Innovators’ CEO and founder Marnie Forestieri. Yet, professionals leave the industry at an alarming turnover rate citing inadequate working conditions, disempowering company culture, and lack of career advancement opportunities.

The Young Innovators’ story began in 2019 as a grassroots movement during a conversation among a small group of educators facing similar frustrations and challenges. To bring about the improvements they wanted to see for their students and profession, they recognized change is required to reverse the childcare crisis.

Shortly after, Dr. Edward Clapp and Dr. Lynette Solis from Harvard University visited Oviedo to assist the team in implementing the principles of Harvard’s research on Maker-centered Learning. During this hands-on collaboration, the team experienced the power of becoming Agents of Change. This conscious shift disrupted every department, from operations, curriculum delivery, training, technology, customer service, and marketing.

Dr. Debby Mitchell, a former UCF professor, leads the curriculum department in collaboration with practitioners in the classroom. By generating answers in the innovative and practical spirit in which they teach, they built the foundation of Young Innovators’ educational philosophy: The Innovation Advantage. Embedded in the curriculum are teacher practices that encourage risk-taking, collaboration, and a growth mindset as children learn to solve problems for others.

To protect the mission, the company is operated exclusively by educators with classroom experience and scaling with new rules. To open their new Winter Garden location, the company is partnering with our director, Erika Seger, retired chief of Orlando Fire Department, Danny Wilson, and his wife, Kellie.

The team is also on a mission to empower the next generation of early learning leaders with research, knowledge, mentoring, and a connected community through their nonprofit initiative. Sarah Sprinkel is the Chief Executive Officer and Dr. Alina Ruta is the VP of strategy on mission to activate and amplify the efforts of early childhood professionals as makers as they learn, build, and work together in their communities.

Empowering children to shape their worlds begins with elevating the career of early learning. Teachers that respect children’s ideas, passions, motivations, and empower children to take responsibility for their learning while building community and character.

“The most important component of quality and excellence in early education is to have a stable, trained, and well-educated workforce,”

Marnie Forestieri