Curious Cardinals

Last week, we announced the Spring 2026 Timeless Skills Pitch Competition 🎉

As we get excited about what’s to come, we’re also still reflecting on the students who showed us what’s possible this summer.

Meet Karys 👋

Karys created Hearts4Hope — a youth-led nonprofit enhancing cognitive health for individuals living with dementia. She turned an idea into a real organization that is partnering with nursing homes.

With support from her mentor Heera, she:
💜 Founded a nonprofit
🧩 Designed care packages with brain games, puzzles, and art activities
💻 Built a mobile-optimized website to expand accessibility
🤝 Recruited and organized volunteers
🌟 Organized intergenerational events bringing people together

The outcome?

Karys delivered real community impact — creating dual benefit for both children and the people living with dementia, fostering emotional connection across age barriers.

Our judges admired her compassion and community, landing her third place in the competition.

Inspired by students like Karys? Your turn 👀

The 2026 Timeless Skills Pitch Competition:
🌍 Open to ALL K-12 students worldwide
👥 Build solo or with a Curious Cardinals mentor
💰 Winners earn $2,500 / $2,000 / $1,000
📅 Submissions due May 9
🎤 Finalists pitch to industry-leading judges on May 17

Register today and start building something extraordinary.

In case you missed it: The Timeless Skills in an AI Era Pitch Competition is BACK!

Whether you’re coding an app, researching a cure, designing a solution, or building something the world hasn’t seen yet, this is the competition for you.

🌍 Open to ALL K-12 students worldwide
👥 Build solo or with support from a Curious Cardinals mentor
💰 Winners earn $2,500 / $2,000 / $1,000
🎤 Pitch live to industry-leading judges (exciting announcements coming soon 👀)

Last year, students built autonomous satellites and proposed solutions to real-world problems. What will you create?

📅 Submissions due May 9
🚀 Final pitches May 17

You don’t want to miss this. Register today, and start building something extraordinary!

You might’ve thought we were done — but we couldn’t be. ✨

Preparing kids for an AI future isn’t something you check off a list.

It’s a long-term commitment.

After watching what students created last year, we knew this had to become a recurring moment — a real finish line for young builders.

✨ Timeless Skills in an AI Era — Pitch Competition | Spring 2026

A global stage for students building real projects, solving real problems, and using AI to amplify their work (not replace it).

🗓 Submissions due May 9, 2026
🌍 Open to students worldwide
🧠 Build solo or with a mentor
🎤 Final pitches: May 17, 2026
👩‍⚖️ Judges coming soon.

If you’re setting bold goals for 2026 — let this be one of them.

👉 Register at the link in bio.

We’re still blown away by our Summer Timeless Skills finalists.

Meet Sloane 👋

Sloane built QLEO — an autonomous system designed to collect debris in low Earth orbit. Not a hypothetical idea. A real, unsolved problem threatening satellites, national security, and critical infrastructure.

With mentorship, she:
🚀 Taught herself complex orbital mechanics
🧮 Ran extensive calculations and system designs
🛰️ Consulted aerospace and defense experts
🤖 Designed an autonomous debris-collection satellite

The outcome?

Sloane presented her work at the American Astronomical Society, authored a mission concept paper, and published a DOI so her research can be cited.

This is the kind of work the Timeless Skills Pitch Competition celebrates.

Inspired by students like Sloane? 👀

More coming very soon.

We’re so proud 🥹

This summer, we hosted our first-ever Timeless Skills Pitch Competition, celebrating the skills that will never go out of style in an AI world — with over 100 student submissions from across the country.

✨ 12 finalists were selected.

🏆 Shout-out to our first-place winners, Spencer & Penelope, who won a $1,000 stipend prize for their project, Track Tutoring.

Where are they now?

Spencer just got into Princeton early, and Penelope is now a Harvard freshman — and a Curious Cardinals mentor.

👀 Something exciting is coming very soon… stay tuned.

Wishing you the happiest New Year from all of us at Curious Cardinals! 🎉

Earlier this December, we got a head start on setting our goals for 2026 at our team retreat.

One of the highlights? Learning from James Slavet—Curious Cardinals dad, mission-driven investor, and company builder.

We also spent time off-site at the , surrounded by Napa’s nature, reflecting on our vision, setting ambitious goals, and thinking about what it will take to win in 2026.

We’re heading into the new year feeling more aligned, energized, and inspired than ever, and we can’t wait to see what 2026 holds for our students, families, and mentors! 💛

Curious Cardinals Wrapped 🧭✨

2025 was a year of curiosity turning into commitment — and commitment turning into real-world impact.

One mentor based in Japan, Skye, worked with 35 students across 524 hours of learning.

He’s just one of 700+ mentors who showed up, week after week, for our students.

We watched students like Jack, a 7th grader from New York, dedicate 170 hours to a passion project — leading to original research and a NASA pitch 🚀

Behind the scenes, mentors like Brian helped grow our community so we could support more students and families around the world.

To our families: thank you for trusting us with your kids and their curiosity.
To our students: you remind us why this work matters.
To our mentors: your time, care, and belief changed lives this year.

This is just the beginning.
Here’s to more building, more creating, and more questions in 2026 💛
Stay curious.