The European Innovation Academy (EIA) offers its participants a challenging and immersive experience in the world of entrepreneurship during four weeks, with the opportunity to take an intensive course in entrepreneurship and digital innovation in a truly international ecosystem. On 18th May, the Técnico students had the opportunity to clarify their doubts during an information session promoted by the Technology Transfer Office at Técnico (TT @ Técnico).
The event was attended by Susana Fonseca, representative of EIA Portugal, Daniel Vila Boa, Técnico alumnus and mentor of EIA, and Carlotta Micale, PhD student who participated in the 2019 edition.
“EIA is an entrepreneurship program that aims to provide participants with the opportunity to experience the whole process of creating a startup”, explained Susana Fonseca. In a very simple but appealing way, the EIA representative highlighted the main news of this year, starting with the biggest one: the online format. The 4th Portuguese edition of EIA will take place from 5th to 23rd July to 23 2021.
This year’s edition will bring together about 350 participants who will be grouped into 70 working groups. The process of creating teams starts in the Pre-week, which takes place for the first time this year. The participants will have the opportunity to access the online platform, which opens on June 30, and start networking.
The next three weeks will be of great learning, each focusing on a business component: the first week will focus on ideation and customer; the second week challenges the participants to look at the product itself; and the third week is dedicated to funding and pitch preparation.
The lectures that used to take place in previous editions will be replaced by a series. “We decided to make a change in order to create a little more engagement. The series was written by screenwriters from Los Angeles and aims to provide the participants with the knowledge”, explained Susana Fonseca.
The mentoring program remains the same as in the in-person format. The event will be attended by mentoring professionals from Uber, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Dell, Stanford University.
In Portugal, the program will operate from 16:00 to 20:00. Only the last two hours (18:00 to 20:00) will take place in real time. The rest of the time can be organised by the teams as they see fit.
“The feedback has been very positive, the contact network of participants significantly increases, the professional opportunities after participating in EIA increases substantially, and the whole entrepreneurial mindset ends up changing due to this contact with a new reality”, stressed Susana Fonseca.
“I had a great experience. If I could, I would repeat this experience”, said Carlotta Micale, who participated in the 2019 edition. “We meet people from other parts of the world, from other universities, with very different backgrounds. Working with people we don’t know, who have different knowledge, is one of the biggest challenges, but it also helps us to improve our skills”, she added.
According to Carlotta Micale “mentoring is one of the most useful parts of this program because many participants don’t know how to start a startup”. “Sometimes we get stuck with an idea, which prevent us from thinking critically about that idea, and mentors help us with that”.
Daniel Vila Boa highlighted the importance of mentors in the process of validating and developing the idea. “Mentors shouldn’t say if an idea is good or bad, if it will work or not. Our role is to make participants understand the value of an idea and product-market”.
At the end of the session, the Vice-president of Técnico for Operations & Enterprise Relationships, professor Pedro Amaral, highlighted the importance of this initiative and thanked Santander for the 25 EIA scholarships.
Applications for EIA scholarships are open until 27th May, at 15:00.
