What is Young Founders School again?
In my previous post, I had mentioned about the place I am currently involved in, Young Founders School — A global education platform teaching the 21st-century skills to high school going teenagers (aged 11- 18 years) in the form of weekend-long entrepreneurship bootcamp. Oh! and did I mention that we do not charge our students?
Young Founders School, YFS, kicked off in 2016 and was founded by Billy Naveed in Hong Kong. YFS soon started to expand as it found more like-minded people becoming team members and by the end of 2018, it was successfully established in 4 different regions — Hong Kong, Singapore, Shenzhen, and Dhaka.
What exactly does YFS focus on?
More than just developing the mindset of entrepreneurship. YFS is more than an entrepreneurial school. If you haven’t noticed already, I introduced YFS saying that we focus on teaching 21st-century skills. That is also something that you will find us use quite a lot while introducing ourselves, for example, the vision of YFS as stated below:
Young Founders School’s vision is to use entrepreneurship to teach 21st-century skills to 11–18 year olds, globally.
What are the 21st-century skills though? Recognizing the use of technology. YFS aims to teach 21st-century skills through the lens of entrepreneurship.
Students partaking in YFS are not only introduced to what we call the entrepreneurial mindset but also practice using the technology required to kickstart any startup/project/business.
Additionally, focusing on tech, course introducing AI is also what we offer.
Why did I use ‘startup/project/business?’
We aim to involve youngsters who probably have never thought of having their own business.
Our students could be coming from business, econ, or science background. They could be even thinking of being an artist and yet, will be eligible to partake in Young Founders School courses.
What these youngsters are taking with them is the knowledge to lead, whether in their own startup, or someone else’s.
What is the eligibility criteria then?
Enthusiasm to learn beyond classrooms.
And of course, the energy to wake up early on a weekend. Jokes apart, the only eligibility requirement they have to fulfill is to be within the age range of 11- 18.
Being a global platform, is it only available in English?
Absolutely not! Each of our cities has adapted/is adapting the course in the local language to ensure that more and more students have access to YFS Bootcamps whilst keeping our English course available as well.
Our team is working relentlessly to ensure that students can enroll regardless of the language or even the institute they come from.
Besides learning how to build a startup, what are the other pros of participating in the bootcamp?
Learning from real-life entrepreneurs and learning the art of pitching in front of actual investors.
During the weekend bootcamp, our students not only go through workshops learning about business models, but they are also exposed to the opportunity of being directly mentored by an actual entrepreneur. By the end of the weekend, set with their business plan, they pitch in front of investors.
Throughout these 42 hours, they go through a rigorous practice of learning and delivering under pressure. In addition to that, they are given the floor to network with industry experts.
Why are the courses free though?
As I mentioned earlier, we want to ensure that students have access to our programs regardless of the background or any sort of eligibility. We do not want to limit our access to any student with any fee.
If you were to ask Billy, this is how he would have answered,
We are a nonprofit and rely on donations. We do not charge the students nor the schools for any of the courses that we provide as we believe that entrepreneurship is a gift that should be passed on to the next generation.
So what happens after the bootcamp? Is the bootcamp the end of the involvement with YFS?
The end? Absolutely not! The bootcamp is rather just the beginning.
Our graduates, once they have graduated from YFS Bootcamps, are exposed to various real-life opportunities such as an internship at startup companies, pitching in business and tech seminars where they learn more about the industry and present in front of a vast crowd filled with industry experts. They are eventually enrolled in our step-up courses such as a 2-hour long course on AI.
Young Founders School is here to prepare the future for its own future and instead of nurturing a skillset that only follows, we are here to nurture the skillset that will lead.
If you want to get into more details about how Young Founders School operates or how it began, you can jump into this interview on Future Startup: Inside YFS’s Ambition To Democratize Entrepreneurship Education: An Interview With Billy Naveed, Founder and CEO, Young Founders School.
Or you can also visit us at www.youngfoundersschool.com or even follow us on FB or Instagram by just searching Young Founders School.
