European Innovation Academy

The European Innovation Academy (EIA) is a summer entrepreneurship boot-camp that unites 450 innovators of over 75 nationalities. It brings together a network of professionals from around the world to collaborate in teaching the next generation of entrepreneurs. Participants ideate, form teams, and pitch to venture capitalists in just three weeks.
The list of mentors and speakers includes the creator of Angry Birds, a New York Times bestselling author, proven entrepreneurs, and more. Participants earn six ECTS credits and a certificate from EIA.
Learning at EIA is experiential and gamified. EIA is a challenging program, yet participants never find themselves writing papers or taking tests. Everything from lectures to mentorship have practical purpose. Particularly for students and professionals, EIA is the least disruptive way to immerse oneself in entrepreneurship.
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Program Structure
The methodology of EIA is developed in collaboration with UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and Google. In particular, EIA draws from entrepreneurial education at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at UC Berkeley. Through a fast-paced, collaborative, and experiential program, EIA immerses participants in the start-up lifestyle.
→Week One
The main goals of Week One are team formation, ideation, and the first phase of prototyping. As soon as all 450 participants arrive, each sells his/her skills, experiences, and ideas to others. Within two days, teams of four to six members are established. Each team is required to have proficiency in design, software engineering, and business. Participants are introduced to the Lean Start-up methodology.
→Week Two
Teams delve into the bulk of their work. Software engineers and designers hack together their product while business roles engage real customers in neighboring towns and cities. A key aim of Week Two is to find product/market fit that makes sense to both the team and to investors. Teams are expected to deliver their respective minimum viable products.
Lectures are geared towards the acquisition and development of customers. During afternoons, mentoring is separated into technical sessions and non-technical sessions. Each team has a dedicated chief mentor.
→Week Three
Having practiced their pitches and polished their prototypes, teams make final preparations for the Venture Capital Investment Competition. EIA hosts a panel of investors from various firms in Europe and the Silicon Valley. Each team pitches to this panel and are judged for their work at EIA. Judging is based on team composition, business model, technical achievement, and pitch.
→Prizes
* Helicopter ride to Monaco and dinner
* Intellectual property counsel from the San Francisco office of Novak Druce Connolly Bove + Quigg, LLP
* Grand prize of €10,000 to the winning team
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Main Partners
* Samsung
* University of California, Berkeley
* Amadeus IT
* Google
* CEEINCA
* Metropole Nice Côte d'Azur
Universities
Partnership with UC Berkeley
“No program has been more impactful on our students than the EIA Summer Abroad… transformed the career paths of some of Berkeley’s best undergraduates and EIA has quickly become one of the cornerstones of Berkeley’s venerable entrepreneurship pedagogy. But our students say it best:
‘What you all created for me this summer was a safe space for experimentation, exploration, failure, innovation, and it quickly became the most genuine learning experience of my adult life so far. Three months after this program had ended, I still think about it (and probably talk about it) on a daily basis.’”
- Ken Singer, Managing Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at UC Berkeley

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