This article was published on May 13, 2013

Student and itching to do a startup? How’d you like to spend the summer in Silicon Valley?


Student and itching to do a startup? How’d you like to spend the summer in Silicon Valley?

If you’re a student and aspiring startup founder, you’re going to want to pay close attention to the following.

Startup Dream Team, started by Paris, France-based student organization Silicon Students, is actively looking for 45 young aspiring entrepreneurs from all around the world who are interested in joining a 9-week summer program in Silicon Valley.

Startup Dream Team essentially wants to offer young people the chance to discover what startups are all about, focusing intensely on the aspect of team creation in particular.

From June 14th to August 18th, the second edition of the program will put together 45 students from all around the globe in one house in Silicon Valley whilst they complete a full-time summer internship, in order to stimulate teamwork with like-minded wannabe entrepreneurs.

On top of that, there will be weekly pitch sessions with a host of mentors, obligatory startup visits and regular talks from top entrepreneurs and investors from the Bay Area.

The first edition of the Startup Dream Team program featured Dropbox CEO Drew Houston and Robert Scoble as speakers, and About.me founder Tony Conrad and Rap Genius co-founder Mahbod Moghabad are already on board for the next one.

Pierre-Simon Ntiruhungwa, a co-founder of Silicon Students who came up with the idea of the program while he was himself interning in a startup in Silicon Valley, says:

“Last year, we did an ‘alpha’ version of the program with 20 participants living in the same place. Great friendships came out of it and we had great talks from inspiring entrepreneurs.

This year we will really focus on having them build solid startup projects. And most importantly, every single fellow should be able to come out of the program with the ability to identify how they fit into a startup team and what type of people they like to work with.”

The goal is to make the program as international as possible. Thus, the number of participants from the United States who are allowed in will be limited to 15 out of 45. Ultimately, Silicon Students aims to extend the program to more cities next year, including several of Europe’s main hubs.

As it’s a student organization doing a program for students, Silicon Students uses crowdfunding to finance its program and you can support them until May 31st on Indiegogo.

For the record: participants actually don’t have to pay for the program, although they do have to cough up some dough to cover the house rent.

And now, probably the reason you clicked through: you can apply for the program here. Be fast, because the deadline is this Thursday, May 16th.

Important note: you don’t necessarily still have to be a student. If you’ve graduated in the past two years and are under 25, you might still be able to get in, according to the rules.

Image credit: Thinkstock

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