Each year, Venture for America scours college campuses in search of soon to be graduates who express a passion for entrepreneurship and a desire to gain firsthand startup experience. After five weeks packed with intensive training and world-class mentorship, VFA’s 2015 Training Camp has come to a close. As VFA prepares to select the incoming 2016 class, 2015 Fellows prepare to move to new cities and complete a two-year fellowship with startups from across the country.
Training camp participants gained an opportunity to raise funds, design prototypes; receive guidance from VFA partners, alumni and more. Fellow teams raised thousands of dollars in a crowd-funding competition held during the training camp and designed products that aim to solve real-world issues. For example, 2015 fellow Ty Rader Diringer, Oberlin College ’14, co-founded Kenya Reads, which helps educate more than 2,000 poverty-stricken Kenyan youth. He more recently launched Project Unbound by raising $9,000 tog fight international human trafficking.
Along with fundraising, fellows received training on problem solving and communication from VFA alumni during the Redux Recap. All four classes of Fellows were invited back for a reunion and to provide leadership and guidance to fellows completing the training camp. In addition to tips from veteran Fellows, participants learned programming from McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm; and the art of negotiation with Marty Finkle of Scotwork, a consulting company devoted to negotiation skills development.
The event included a celebration of the graduation of the 2013 class of fellows who have completed two years of startup experience and earned the title of “alumni”. As the class of 2013 class celebrates completion, VFA and the alumni send off yet another batch of Fellows to grow alongside companies all over the country until the graduate in 2017.
To learn more about Venture for America and its Fellows, visit VentureforAmerica.org.
