An Idea Begins with Someone: The Keystone Venture Lab Journey

Over twelve months, Keystone students will explore the people behind the problems, test their assumptions and develop their Passion Projects with guidance from AIC–ISB.

At first, the idea is the exciting part.

A student can picture what they want to build. They can describe its features, explain how it might work and imagine the difference it could make. There is something compelling about that moment when a possibility begins to feel real.

Then comes a question that asks them to look beyond what they have imagined:

Who would use this, and what do we understand about their life?

Answering it takes the student into less familiar territory. They may need to listen to someone whose experience differs from their own. They may discover that a problem they thought they understood looks different to the person living with it.

This is where the Keystone Venture Lab journey begins.

Understanding the Person Behind the Problem

On 29 October 2026, Keystone Venture Lab held its first session, led by Rohit Maskara. The focus was understanding the problem and the user—the people whose needs would give an idea its purpose.

Developed in collaboration with AIC at the Indian School of Business, the twelve-month programme brings specialist mentorship in user understanding, validation and venture development into students’ ongoing Passion Projects.

For students eager to move an idea forward, beginning with the user creates a valuable pause. Before deciding what a solution should do, they need to understand what someone is trying to accomplish, where difficulties arise and how that person currently manages.

Even the word user invites closer examination. The person using a solution may be different from the person choosing it or paying for it. Each may bring a different need, concern or expectation.

An idea that once seemed straightforward now has people, circumstances and decisions to account for. The next step becomes an investigation.

When a question changes the project

The follow-up to Session 1 asked students to sharpen their problem statements and identify an assumption to check.

It is a modest task with significant consequences.

An assumption can sit quietly inside a project: that people face a particular difficulty, that an existing option is inadequate, or that a proposed feature would be useful. Until it is examined, a student may build each new decision on something they have yet to establish.

Choosing an assumption to investigate gives the work a clearer direction. Whom should they speak with? What should they observe? What evidence would help them reconsider their idea?

The answers may lead to a narrower problem, a different conversation or a feature set aside for later. A student may return to the same project with a changed understanding of what it needs to become.

That change is part of the learning.

Giving curiosity time to develop

At Keystone School in Hyderabad, IDEA LOOM is our inquiry-driven, interdisciplinary approach to project-based learning. Students investigate real-world questions, learn with communities, and develop, test and refine their ideas.

Within KIPP, Keystone’s high-school model, Passion Projects give students time to pursue an interest in depth. Venture Lab adds specialist guidance as they consider how their ideas could work in practice.

Along the way, subject boundaries become less tidy. A design decision may depend on research. A technical possibility may raise questions about affordability or access. Explaining a project to someone else may reveal a gap that was difficult to notice alone.

Students have to bring these connections together and make decisions they can explain.

Twelve months creates room to return to those decisions. There is time to seek feedback, try again and recognise that an earlier answer may need revision.

Progress might appear as a clearer problem statement or a more thoughtful question well before it appears as a finished outcome.

The story is still being written

Over the coming months, we will follow what students investigate, what challenges their thinking and how their Passion Projects evolve.

For now, the journey begins with a person whose experience deserves to be understood—and a student willing to find out more.

For parents, this offers a glimpse into learning at Keystone: the questions students pursue, the connections they make and the responsibility they take for developing their ideas.

What could your child discover with the time and guidance to pursue a question of their own? Explore Keystone School and learn more about how we help students turn curiosity into purposeful learning.