Empowering EdTech Entrepreneurs
Your EdTech Startup Journey starts here! In our EdTech Next Academy you will learn the basics of launching an EdTech startup and how to overcome the first obstacles so that you can establish yourselves successfuly on the education market.
Funded by:
EdTech Next Academy
Are you ready to dive into a multi-week program full of learnings and Ed-tech specific expertise which will you help you to take the first steps towards your own EdTech startup?
In our EdTech Next Academy you will be intensely individually trained by top-tier mentors and renowned founders from the EdTech scene. You will learn all the basics of launching a company, creating a business plan, and building a team. We provide you with all the support you need to validate your idea for the EdTech market
FOR TALENTS LIKE YOU
Fostering Talent
Fixed starting and ending date
hybrid concept (online or on-site in Bielefeld)
program language: German
Schedule
Twice a year
10-week part-time program
time involved: 20 hours a week
Audience
Singular talents in EdTech with an entpreneurial mindset
teams with a business idea in its early phase
Focus
Startup Basics
team matching
contents specific to the EdTech sector
Goal
Validated business idea
assembled team of founders
entry into the Incubator
Education needs a digital paradigm shift!
Fresh and innovative ideas, developed and and established by bold founders, to enact transformation in old systems. EdTech represents that transformation in school systems and has the goal to use technology to improve, support, and expand education processes. These technologies are able to decisively influence the way people learn and create a lasting impact on many fields of education.
Let’s imagine that YOUR technology will analyze the learning behavior of students and adjust materials to their individual strengths and weaknesses thus strengthening the efficiency of their learning process. Or another scenario: Your software will help training companies to prepare skilled personnel for the new challenges our economy faces in the future. There are countless motivations why founders want to launch an EdTech Startup – we are excited about what motivates you!
Program Content
Idea Block
In our Idea Block you will learn how to evaluate what characterizes a successful business idea, how to find out if there is a market and demand for the idea, and which components are necessary to build a successful team.
Building Block
Once you have completed the Building Block, you will know what the first version of your solution looks like, how to achieve that milestone, and how you can best approach and win over customers for your solution.
Growth Block
In topic-specific workshops you will learn about the most important metrics of your business idea, how to systematically record and improve them, and which options you have to finance your startup.
Final Pitch Day
The Final Pitch Day is the grand finale of the EdTech Next Academy. You and your team get to present your startup idea in front of a huge audience. A jury of investors and corporate representatives grades the pitches and chooses the winning team.
Your Personal Program Benefits
GATHER TOP-NOTCH EXPERTISE AND BUILD A STRONG NETWORK
Practical Startup Knowhow
You get all the skills and all the information you need to build a successful EdTech startup and establish yourself in the international startup scene. Within 10 weeks you will learn what it really means to achieve the Problem-solution fit and to lay the groundwork so that your sales and investments can go through the roof.
Co-Founder Matching
Link up with other ambitious talents who share your mission so that you can grow together. Participating in our EdTech Next Academy is a groundbreaking step on the way to assemble a strong founder team. We bring amazingly talented founders together by evaluating hard and soft skills, interests, and personalities, even before the program starts.
For All Stages of Life
The EdTech Next Academy is designed to be job-compatible. You can participate while still pursuing your current activities, whether your work full-time, on a research project, a master’s degree or anything else. The program comprises online and on-site sessions in regular rotation. All sessions (both online and on-site) take place after work hours during the week or on weekends.
EdTech Expertise & Network
The Founders Foundation is the perfect place to start building successful EdTech companies. As a subsidiary of the Bertelsmann Stiftung the topic of education is deeply embedded in our DNA – we regard ourselves as an institution for startup education. Beyond that, the countless Hidden Champions from the German Mittelstand and global leaders right next door represent exciting points of contact and possible customers for training solutions in the B2B sector.
Highly Qualified Experts & Entrepreneurs
The program is spearheaded by successful experts and mentors. All lecturers of the EdTech Next Academy are experienced investors and startup experts – you will learn from the best!
EdTech Founders Community Access
You get access to our Slack community and to the EdTech Builders Group whose members are among the most interesting founders and startup scene luminaries Germany has to offer. As one of the leading organisations in startup training in Germany and with solid connections to the international startup scene, the Founders Foundation additionally offers you access to our network of highly qualified mentors and experts, partners in various industries, business angels, and VCs.
READY TO EXPERIENCE COMMUNITY POWER?
Join our EdTech Next Slack Community and meet aspiring entrepreneurs and future founders!
Top-Class Mentors
Profit from the extensive expert knowledge of our mentors, lectureres, and international speakers – all of whom will actively help you on your entrepreneurial journey.
Dr. Jan Brinckmann
Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy
ESADE Barcelona
Kristina Walcker-Mayer
CEO
Nuri
Jana Görs
Co-Founder
Zephram
The Startup Journey
In the Lab, you and your team members further develop your business idea into a preliminary product, the MVP, and solidify your validation. You become experts for the problem, the solution, and the potential market. This is how you achieve the Problem-solution fit.
To accomplish all of that, you receive individual coaching from program managers and mentors and enjoy all the advantages our Founders Home has to offer. Once during a quarter, you face new startup teams on the Challenger Day where you pitch your progress and receive feedback from mentors and other founders.
During the 5-months full-time Accelerator, you go all out: You acquire the first customers, build your product, iterate your assumptions and insights, until you are on the stage of the Demo Day, with a solid Product-market fit and ready to launch into the first round of financing. On Demo Day, you show off your business case, and yourselves, to the German VC scene and become part of our alumni network.
The Road of your Startup Journey:
Talent Meetup x Founders Talk February 24
Meet future founders, aspiring entrepreneurs, and the people behind Startup School & the EdTech Next Academy at our Talent Meetup in the Founders Home. Enjoy a cold drink and listen to a tech company icon talking about his life and career at our Founders Talk – former Silicon Valley developer for Google and currently head of his own company Codesphere Elias Groll.
Online Info Meetup – March 01
We invite to have a look behind the scenes of our Education Program. Whether you work on your own or in a team – join us on Zoom on March 1 and get to know the Founders Foundation team and the schedule for the EdTech Next Academy #2. Whether you are simply interested in startups or already working on a specifi idea. The EdTech Next Academy could be the next step in your journey.
Ideation Workshops
Every successful startup starts with a good idea. The million-dollar question: How do you find an idea that you can be passionate about and that also breaks through any ceiling? Only in very rare cases these ideas are born from a single moment of sudden inspiration. Much more often, they are the result of a well-structured process. In our ideation workshops, we will develop this process together with every single workshop having a specific focus.
E-Learning for the Entrepreneurs of the Future
You want to have access to the basic information that you need for your personal startup journey at any time and as often as you need? The free version of our e-learning course offers exclusive content provided first-hand by 20 founders and VCs from the German startup and tech scene and by our very own Founders Foundation experts. Start your very own startup journey with us!
Any questions?
Our Program Manager Katharina Schnur is happy to answer all your questions about the EdTech Next programs.
Not exactly the right place?
Can’t find yourself and your company’s maturity level represented here? This is where you go next:
EdTech Next Incubator
For EdTech startup teams who want to further develop their idea.
You Have Questions?
Talk to us!
We are happy to answer your questions about our programs, our mission and the events we are hosting.
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