Trinity School of Durham-Chapel Hill
Redemptive Entrepreneurship& AI
Winterim 2025
"Creative restoration through sacrifice"
View Student ProjectsThe Vision
Joining God in the Renewal of All Things
God is not only the Creator but also the Restorer—and He invites us into that work. Entrepreneurship provides a powerful way to participate in this restoration: identifying and understanding problems deeply (theologically and culturally) so we can use redemptive imagination to innovate and create new products and services that bring more truth, goodness, and beauty to the world.
Student PROJECTS
Each project represents a student's journey through identifying brokenness, imagining restoration, and building toward flourishing. These prototypes embody the redemptive pattern: using creativity, grit, and perseverance to bring more truth, goodness, and beauty to the world.
The Guild
Problem Statement
Students lose motivation because schools lack a flexible system to verify the wide range of skills they learn on their own. Because there is no trusted way to 'stamp' these diverse achievements, students are forced to waste time repeating things they have already mastered just to get a grade.
How Might We
How might we enable personalized learning with peers and provide credit from industry professionals?
Circulant
Problem Statement
The meat industry sustains a high carbon footprint because its production and logistics systems are disconnected: factories vent massive amounts of recoverable CO₂ into the atmosphere while simultaneously purchasing carbon-intensive refrigerants to transport their products.
How Might We
How might we capture thermal waste streams on-site to create a self-sustaining cooling cycle, eliminating the need for external refrigerants?
IgniteBuilds
Problem Statement
Online video consumption creates a widening gap between observation and action. Novice creators are confident in our knowledge because they watch, but paralyzed in their craft because they do not do.
How Might We
How might we transform passive viewers into active makers, instantly turning 'watching' into 'doing'?
Sentinel
Problem Statement
Patients suffer long-term financial ruin because profit-driven systems use opaque billing to hide costs, trapping vulnerable people in debt despite having insurance.
How Might We
How might we simplify the process for patients to verify and enforce their federal right to charity care before they ever receive a bill?
TeamSync
Problem Statement
Project-based teams are failing because workers are using high-stimulation entertainment for their 'rest.' These breaks make real-life teamwork feel boring or stressful by comparison, so workers avoid their colleagues and choose to stay behind their screens instead of helping the team finish the project.
How Might We
How might we help groups return to being team-based and make breaks enjoyable while not damaging the work?
Boon
Problem Statement
People pursuing sensitive personal transformations (like addiction recovery or 'scary' life pivots) lack a psychologically safe 'middle-ground' community where they can be seen without the weight of their existing social reputation or the fear of immediate judgment.
How Might We
How might we transform habit tracking from a solo task into a communal experience, using gamification and offline connection to turn personal growth into a shared team win?
The Journey
Six Half-Days of Formation
Over the course of six intensive half-day sessions, students at Trinity School engaged with the intersection of artificial intelligence and redemptive entrepreneurship—learning to direct their agency and resources toward ventures that seek creative restoration rather than mere extraction.
Guided by the Praxis framework and Faith Driven Entrepreneur's Called to Create curriculum, students identified Opportunities for Redemptive Impact (ORIs), developed problem statements, and built working prototypes using AI tools—all while wrestling with what it means to build organizations that bless people and renew culture.
Redemptive
Following the pattern of creative restoration through sacrifice in our life and work—"I sacrifice, we win."
Entrepreneurship
Directing our agency and resources toward organizational creation, innovation, and risk.
AI as Tool
Leveraging artificial intelligence not to exploit or merely advance culture, but to serve human flourishing and restore what is broken.
Self-Discovery
Working Genius Assessment
Each student completed Patrick Lencioni's Working Genius assessment to discover how they're uniquely wired for work—understanding their natural gifts, competencies, and areas that drain them. This self-awareness equipped them to build teams and contribute where they thrive.
Character Formation
Grit, Determination & Perseverance
A key theme throughout the winterim: entrepreneurship requires grit. Students learned that building something redemptive means pressing through obstacles, embracing failure as formation, and persevering when the work gets hard—trusting that faithfulness matters more than immediate success.