Innovation in Education Award: Celebrating Bold Approaches to Teaching, Talent, and the Future of Work

Innovation in Hampton Roads doesn’t just come from our labs, our founders, or our high-growth startups. It’s being built every day inside the classrooms, career pipelines, and learning environments shaping our region’s next generation.

At 757 TechNite, the Innovation in Education Award, sponsored by Old Dominion University, spotlights the organizations reimagining how students learn, how talent develops, and how employers connect with the workforce of tomorrow. Kevin Leslie, ODU’s AVP for Innovation and Commercialization, joined us on stage to help present this honor.

This year’s finalists show the breadth of that innovation—from high school academies preparing students for investor-ready pitches, to programs removing socioeconomic barriers to upward mobility, to digital curriculum platforms transforming how schools teach real-world communication.

The Finalists

The Entrepreneurship and Business Academy at Kempsville High School
A cornerstone of Virginia Beach Public Schools, the Entrepreneurship and Business Academy at Kempsville reframes what education can look like. Through three pathways—Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Business Information Technology, and Corporate Finance—students learn by doing. They begin with foundational coursework, adopt lean startup methods through hands-on problem discovery, and ultimately deliver investor-style pitches at the Academy’s annual, community-judged Pitch Night. It is one of the region’s strongest examples of experiential learning at scale.

Neighborhood
Neighborhood’s Economic Access Initiative bridges the region’s “tragic gap” between untapped talent and employers by combining leadership development, credentialed training, and redesigned hiring pipelines. A six-week Leadership Lab builds communication, EQ, and strategic thinking; a Career Lab funds industry credentials in high-demand fields and provides monthly stipends to remove access barriers; and Career Launch embeds employers from day one to engineer placement pathways.

Rubin
Rubin is the leading provider of classroom-ready curriculum for business communication and employability skills, addressing long-standing gaps in how schools teach email etiquette, professional speaking, and workplace readiness. With more than 600 digital lessons embedded directly into district LMS platforms, Rubin enables middle school, high school, and higher-ed instructors to deploy consistent, scalable soft-skills training across large numbers of learners.

And the Winner Is…

The Entrepreneurship and Business Academy at Kempsville High School

This year’s Innovation in Education winner reflects the same spirit that drives the 757 forward: bold ideas, practical solutions, and a commitment to building opportunity for every learner. We celebrate their impact, and the impact of all our finalists, as they help define the future of education in Hampton Roads.