We develop WILD Intelligence - the capacity to navigate uncertainty - in young people, families, and the educators shaping them. In an era where AI changes everything, we invest in what makes humans irreplaceable.
The career paths that guided previous generations are dissolving. AI is reshaping every industry and every role - not once, but continuously. The institutions that were supposed to prepare the next generation are still teaching from yesterday's map.
The conventional response is to retool - teach coding, teach AI literacy, teach the skills of the moment. But the moment keeps changing. By the time the curriculum is written, the terrain has shifted again.
WILD Intelligence - Wisdom, Intention, Leadership, Discovery - is the set of human capacities that makes every other skill useful. It's what enables a young person to think clearly in confusion, hold direction when options are infinite, lead without a script, and learn faster than the ground shifts beneath them.
These capacities have always mattered. AI just made them essential.
Parents and teenagers navigating the high-school-to-college transition, and younger families building these capacities across generations.
K–12 teachers, higher-ed faculty, and curriculum designers integrating uncertainty navigation into how they already teach.
Independent schools, public districts, and university partners bringing WILD Intelligence into their communities at scale.
Program officers and funders investing in education innovation, AI literacy, and youth development during a transformational decade.
We build programs that develop navigation intelligence at the age and stage where it matters most - informed by decades of research and twenty-five years of practice developing these capacities in people of all ages.
Ages 13–18. Building the four core capacities through experiential learning. A four-level developmental progression from Encounter through Guide, designed around how navigation capacity actually develops in young people.
Pilot cohort · Fall 2026Workshops and training for K–12 and higher-ed faculty. Integrating uncertainty navigation into existing curricula - half-day workshops, semester PD series, and school-wide implementation partnerships.
Partner schools · 2026–2027For families navigating the high-school-to-college transition. Develops WILD capabilities in both teens (15–18) and their parents simultaneously - because successful navigation requires the whole system to evolve.
Virtual cohorts · Fall 2026All ages welcome. Workshop series, family navigation days, and intergenerational cohorts developing WILD Intelligence across generations - with younger children, multiple siblings, or through major family transitions.
Workshops launching 2026See what's true. Cut through noise and complexity to discern what actually matters.
Hold your direction. Maintain clarity when the options are infinite and the pressure is real.
Create movement. Build the conditions where people can navigate what's never been mapped.
Evolve in real time. Learn from every experiment. Adapt faster than the terrain shifts.
Twenty-five years of developing these capacities in ourselves, in students, in founders, and in the leaders of organizations navigating real change. The Institute is a new structure for work that is already underway.
Chris developed and ran a program where college students volunteered to teach design thinking, problem-solving, and the elements of WILD Intelligence to middle schoolers. The program wove into students' existing community projects - not replacing anything, just giving them a framework for identifying and solving real challenges in their own community.
Young people learning to see problems differently. Older students learning to teach. A community-anchored proof of how WILD Intelligence translates down to thirteen-year-olds.
Andrea has spent years working with nonprofit leaders and community organizations, helping leadership develop the capacity to wander into the wild - to make decisions when the map doesn't exist, build trust when every variable is in motion, and navigate uncharted solutions to problems that don't fit conventional frameworks.
The same practice now informs how the Institute develops capacity in teachers, parents, and young people. The method didn't begin with youth - it began with the adults who needed it most, and proved itself across sectors before it came home.
Andrea leads the sparkWILD Institute. She evaluates, repairs, designs, and builds the human architecture underneath every system that actually works - the connection, trust, and motivation that become more important, not less, as AI handles more of the work.
She was on the fast track to HR leadership at The Home Depot before she was thirty - guiding cultural integration across multi-billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions, the work of taking two organizations with different instincts, different hierarchies, and different unspoken rules, and making them function as one coherent body. She left corporate America not because she burned out, but because she saw the ceiling: the most important work - helping people navigate real transitions, not manage abstract ones - wasn't happening inside institutional walls.
With Chris, she built and sold two businesses in Crested Butte, Colorado, including the state's highest-rated boutique inn across fifteen years of operation. Now she brings that same practice of navigating uncertainty to families, educators, and young people - grounded in a simple belief: culture is the real operating system, and you change it by changing relationships, not by announcing policies.
Chris created the WILD Intelligence framework the Institute teaches. Tenured professor of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship with fifteen years of university curriculum design. JD, University of Colorado. Certified Financial Manager. Stanford Innovation Certificate. IBM Enterprise Design Thinking and AI Practitioner certifications. Author of Wild Intelligence.
He contributes framework evolution, pedagogy consultation, and research direction to the Institute. His primary operational role is at The WILD Navigation Company, where he leads individual and organizational advisory work.
The sparkWILD Institute is governed by an independent board with expertise in education, nonprofit leadership, and youth development. Board composition and governance documents are available to partners and funders on request. Additional members are being confirmed through 2026.
The sparkWILD Institute and The WILD Navigation Company share founders and framework. The Institute serves young people, families, and educators. The Company serves individual and organizational advisory clients. Two organizations, two missions, one intellectual lineage.
sparkWILD Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your contribution supports youth programs, educator training, and research into how WILD Intelligence develops.
Schools, youth organizations, and foundations interested in integrating WILD Intelligence into their programs. We're actively seeking institutional partners for curriculum development and pilot programs.
For foundation program officers exploring funding opportunities in human development, AI literacy, and educational innovation. Contact us to discuss alignment with your giving priorities.
Whether you're an educator, a parent, a funder, or someone who sees what's needed - we'd like to hear from you.
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