Seedstars Academy Egypt open for applications!

Seedstars is launching Seedstars Academy to educate entrepreneurs in residence in Egypt and enable them to spread the use of internet and digital technologies, to combat its rampant youth unemployment rate, which according to the World Bank is over 30%. There has been a massive divide between the industry and academia globally with respect to employable skills and the mindsets needed for graduates to thrive in the future. The situation is similar here in Egypt and despite the urgency, these higher order skills needed to compete in the job market today are still not taught in universities. The key to resolving this conundrum is to disrupt learning by working backwards from the unmet needs of the markets, the private sector and the entrepreneurship ecosystem and equipping young people with the skills desired from those stakeholders.

The Entrepreneurs in Residence enrolled in the Academy work from day 1 on developing a business, and experience in 6 months the whole cycle of building a building a business, from idea to MVP. The program provides a blend of transferable skills (entrepreneurship and soft skills) which includes effective communication, teamwork, project management, business modelling and innovation and vocational skills (digital innovation) which includes UI/UX, rapid prototyping, online marketing, analytics et al; supplemented with instilling an entrepreneurial mindset needed for participants to bring meaningful change with digital entrepreneurship. Unlike any other program of its kind, participants don’t have to pay to attend this program. They have instead flipped the model on its head. Here, candidates who are selected get paid while learning to become entrepreneurs. This ensures that people who cannot afford to pay for education or can’t afford to not be paid for 6 months can still attend the program.

They also get exposed to world-class mentors that will share their experience building successful digital products around the world and what it takes to get there. Finally, the program significantly boosts participants’ employability by helping them expand their network and leverage Seedstars’ global community either to launch their own companies later on, continue in the companies they interned at or join another organisation, creating a new tribe of disruptive innovators ready to take on the startup ecosystem in Egypt and across the region. They do all this in under 12 weeks and in 160 hours of power-packed and cutting-edge curricula built by world class mentors with experience building programs globally.

This will also ultimately unleash the GDP growth potential of the nation and also, it will open doors to well-paying jobs, community engagement and other wide-range benefits to society. Therefore, in the Egyptian and regional context, entrepreneurship and digital innovation education have never been more important.

Started in Lagos, Nigeria in March 2016, Seedstars Academy is quickly expanding to 10+ key hubs throughout 2017 and, with this, aims to be at the precipice of cutting-edge entrepreneurship and digital innovation education across the emerging world.

The Seedstars Academy itself is built to be inclusive but to ensure only the most committed are chosen, the candidates go through a rigorous selection criterion with the acceptance rate in the single digits. Candidates are tested on their tenacity, logical reasoning, storytelling and their ability to sell through a blended series of tests and challenges both online and offline. The Academy is looking for candidates with a clear entrepreneurial mindset and a strong drive, passion for technology, strong problem solving skills, attention to detail and fluency in English.

Check below to apply for the openings in Seedstars Academy as well as the other current positions open for Cairo, Egypt!