When Steve Jobs was 12, he looked up Bill Hewlett, the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, in the phone book, called him up, and asked if he had any spare parts for the frequency counter he was building in school. Hewlett helped Jobs out with the frequency counter, and then ended up offering him a job on the HP assembly line that summer.

You know the rest of the story.

The benefits of teaching kids entrepreneurship skills have been written about widely. Letting kids build their own businesses gives them hands-on experience solving tough challenges. But working with role models who are entrepreneurs themselves, like Jobs did with Hewlett, can be an amazing bonus that nurtures kids’ entrepreneurial spirit and allows them to envision what’s truly possible.

The Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh’s Startup Something project aims to expose kids to local role models who have become their own bosses. The program brings kids on visits to local technology startups like iTwixie, Thread International, and Idea Foundry.

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