START FOR GOOD

Hybrid Startup Bootcamp & Competition

OCTOBER 13 - NOVEMBER 9,  2024

October 13 - November 6, 2024: Online Real-Time Mentorship Program
November 8 - November 9, 2024: Startup Expo & Competition in Doha, Qatar

Your ideas have the power to create change. At 'Start For Good,' we’re here to help you turn those ideas into something real. Join a global community that believes in making an impact, where mentorship, collaboration, and hands-on experience will guide you to success. Let's build something meaningful together.

Join This Exclusive, 100% Free Learning Experience – Limited Spots Available for Select Participants. Secure Yours Today!

Application period has ended.

Organized By:

cmuq-wordmark-square-w-on-r-large (3)

In Partnership With:

EIA & QRDI Logo

Start For Good isn't just an online course. It is an intensive mentorship program that brings together international students and industry leaders. This unique collaboration ensures participants receive world-class guidance and practical experience.

The program concludes with a startup competition held at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, where the top 10 teams will pitch their startup ideas to a panel of industry leaders, investors, and sponsors. This initiative is in collaboration with the Business Administration program at CMU-Q.

3. BA-CMUQ-wordmark-black

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

  • Discover Real Customer Needs: Learn to identify and address real market needs.
  • Effective Teamwork: Master collaboration and leverage diverse skills within your team.
  • Market Potential: Analyze and target markets worth $100M or more.
  • Innovative Prototyping: Develop and refine your product prototypes.
  • Strategic Marketing: Craft compelling strategies to market your startup.
  • Scalable Business Models: Build robust business
    models for sustainable growth.
LEARN MORE

SPEAKERS & MENTORS

Participants will work with experienced mentors and coaches from around the globe, helping them develop their ideas into functioning minimum viable products and viable business models.

The list of mentors is constantly being updated.

EVENT TIMELINE

Turn Your Idea Into a Startup in 4 Weeks

WEEK 0

TEAM BUILDING & IDEATION

Entrepreneurship and its Significance
Building High-Impact Teams in Startups
Identifying Market Needs and Customer Pain Points
Mastering Problem Identification and Ideation

WEEK 1

PROBLEM-SOLUTION FIT

Problem Identification and Validation
Decoding and Validating the Customer
Validating the Chosen Problem with Real Customer Data
Defining the Value Proposition
Problem Sizing & Problem-Solution Fit

WEEK 2

PRODUCT-MARKET FIT

Introduction to Product Market Fit
Advanced Prototyping Using VR and AR tools
MVP Development & Product Features
Validating the Prototype

WEEK 3

GO-TO-MARKET STRATEGY

Designing Effective & Efficient Go-to-Market Strategy
Developing a Marketing Strategy Aligning with Customer Insights
Creating Customer Personas, Marketing Messaging, and Channel Strategy
Leveraging AI for Market Segmentation.
Drafting a Business Model, Pricing Strategies, and Revenue Streams

WEEK 4

STARTUP EXPO AND COMPETITION

Navigating the World of Startup Funding
Plan for the Next 100 Days
Startup Expo - Pitch Your Idea for the First Time
Live Stage Pitch for the Top 10 Teams

Hands-On Entrepreneurial Experience

Have you ever started a business? StartForGood gives you the appropriate knowledge, mindset, and skills to launch a startup. After graduation, each participant has the core skills to go from an idea to a startup. Our methodology relies on the knowledge of our experienced mentors and experts, who have one foot in the industry and another in the classroom.

Hyper Personalized Learning

Competitive work environments are pushing you to learn and improve your core skills in your academic discipline. That's why we created a hyper-personalized program! Throughout the program, you receive materials and feedback designed for your area of expertise. 

International Experience 

By collaborating with the students from the Middle East you will will gain valuable insights into the unique cultural, economic landscape of the Middle East, opening doors to opportunities in this dynamic market. 

STARTUP Expo & Competition

Startups present their ideas and solutions to all other participants, mentors, and visitors at our public Startup Exposition. Teams will pitch their product while responding to questions to gain feedback from industry professionals and fellow peers.

The program concludes with a competition held at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, where the top 10 teams will pitch their startup ideas to a panel of industry leaders, investors, and sponsors.

TESTIMONIALS

  

Rick Rasmussen

UC Berkeley
We take the students from all over the world and put them through The Process. The process of forming teams, coming up with ideas, taking those ideas through steps like customer validation, trying to figure out weather their idea is interesting or unique enough, tying to find out what their business-cases look like and eventually presenting their idea in front of the panel of investors. The whole idea is to provide a mindset how to go ahead and become an entrepreneur as well as all the tools you need to go ahead and take an idea from concept into implementation.

Aya AbuDoleh

Jordan University of Science and Technology
I was honoured to participate in the first edition of the Arab Innovation Academy. Words can't be enough to describe the great experience the accelerated process and the most awesome people I've met. I can tell that I actually left with a new mindset, new vision and million of new skills.

Ken Singer

UC Berkeley
A fantastic program for people who are exploring the possibility of starting their own company. The program mimics the exact process that an actual entrepreneur would go through. You learn really quickly what you are really good at and what are the things you need to work on. You cant read it in a book. Experiential learning allows you to make these decisions on your own so you start realizing it is not that easy.

Martin Omander

Google
In the programs of Innovation Academy the development of technology is a social thing. Magic happens when you put a diverse group into a room together to work on a common idea. The students are doing the same as accelerators try to do in 3-6 months and I am amazed of how much comes out and how many projects are actually working after such a short time. Impressive!

Ravi Belani

Alchemist Accelerator
The programs of Innovation Academy are destinctive on a couple of dimensions: the first - they are truly experiential. The best way to learn entrepreneurship is to get out of the classroom and jump into immersive experience. And secondly the cultural experience during these three weeks is also incredible. You are working with cross-cultural teams from different backgrounds that bring a diverse set of experiences - it can be really important from the business perspective, but more importantly its just a lot of fun!

Tiffine Wang

UC Berkeley
You are in a place where you are mixed with people from all over the world and its not predictable. And you are really learning how to learn and how to adjust to something competely different. You are getting out of the classroom and recieveing a life-changing experience.
100
Participants
25
Nationalities
33
New Startups
20
Speakers and Mentors