The Stellenbosch University LaunchLab officially kicked off their Fellowship Programme on Monday, 5 February with 12 students filled with aspirations of elevating their own lives through gaining valuable connections with LaunchLab start-ups.
Through this platform the LaunchLab hopes to inspire, guide and unleash the critical mass of problem solvers, at Stellenbosch University, guiding them along the path to discover their purpose in entrepreneurship and make an impact.
The core focus of this programme:
The core focus of this fellowship programme is to invest more in building a tribe that feels included in what we do. The key tag line within this initiative is ecosystem development, focusing on the following aspects:
To Foster Collaboration
Young people need support networks that can help them communicate, draw inspiration and gather resources to take action. These networks include not just their peers who share the same interest, but mentors and others who support their cause. To facilitate the emergence of a global community and network of young people that are committed to changing the world.
Knowledge Generation and Sharing
As young people gain experience and move on to other things in life they often take their valuable experience with them, leaving others to relearn the lessons of the past. To ensure continuity of learning, it is important to have mechanisms for capturing the lessons from the past as knowledged resources as well as to share that knowledge as widely as possible. With the help of our willing residents we can use the fellowship programme as a vehicle for knowledge sharing and importation within the ecosystem. The fellowship programme can act as a knowledge sharing pipeline.
Feeder for Incubation
If this programme is fully endorsed and supported we would have finally answered the questions around having a feeder program for our incubation program. The fellowship programme would be structured to function as a feeder program for our mainstream incubation program. The aim would be to Identify talents that can participate in our ideas programme and make their way up within our incubation programme.
Opportunities identified for LaunchLab Fellows
The following key activities will be covered in the fellowship program.
- Product development/makerspace activities
- Monthly meetups and breakthrough innovation impact stories
- Assist at LaunchLab events
- Participation in global startup events and challenges
- Work with LaunchLab startups
- Become contenders for our Corporate Innovation Challenges
- Free training and skills acquisition programmes.
What will LaunchLab Fellows have access to?
- Commercialisation of product or technology
- Interaction with SU technologies
- Work in teams with the aim of commercialising world class technology and driving it to become a successful business
- Introduce innovative flagship products that are relevant to the need of existing or new corporate clients
- Access to LaunchLab development partners on products on which they are currently working
- Develop your own new and interesting solutions, and showcase them to relevant members of our community
- Participation in LaunchLab programmes
- Participation in LaunchLab talks
- Assist at LaunchLab events
- Provide adhoc support as interns or volunteers for startups, thereby gaining valuable experience.
Who are the LaunchLab Fellows?
The LaunchLab Fellowship Programme is open to the following category of people:
- Stellenbosch University students
- Problem solvers
- Researchers and engineering students
- Students from other universities where we are networked who are able to be in Stellenbosch
- International students from global knowledge regions.
Visit our website for www.launchlab.co.za or email Pius@launchlab.co.za directly to find out more about this programme. Please note that all entries for 2018 have closed.
