Image credits: ASIF Ventures
In today’s world, gaining a competitive edge is vital for any student to have a successful career. College life offers grand opportunities for students to learn new things and shape or start the career they want. This is the phase of life when, apart from their core studies, they can also take up other activities to gain said ‘competitive edge’ over their peers.
Student entrepreneurship is also on the rise. With minimal associated risks, numerous available resources, and a literal ‘nothing to lose’ attitude, Europe has recently seen a boom in student entrepreneurship.
These are the women in science of the Amsterdam startup ecosystem.
This also acts as an added bonus for startups. Because students can bring a lot of innovative and fresh ideas on board. Startus can also help students gain industry exposure before they actually jump into the quagmire of the corporate job seekers world, thereby closing the university to industry gap.
And this is particularly booming in Amsterdam.
Various organisations in the capital city of the Netherlands are dedicated to nurturing this student-startup relationship. Various startups focus on providing students the ‘competitive edge’ and some trying to make entrepreneurs out of them.
Here are five Amsterdam-based initiatives focussed on enriching student life:
Asif Ventures
Based out of Amsterdam, ASIF Ventures is a student startup fund that supports startups of students and recent graduates from the beginning by investing from €25K to €100K.
The platform is on a mission to spur entrepreneurship in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area by guiding and investing in student-led startups. Their most recent investments include HelloMentor, Elementa Labs and Redistri; all hailing from Amsterdam
Currently, ASIF Ventures has scheduled a couple of events – Board Info Night #2 on March 16th, and Inclusive Entrepreneurship Week (IEW) on March 8 to March 11th.
Click here to know more about the event.
International Talent Event Amsterdam (ITEA)
Organised in collaboration with AIESEC Amsterdam, ITEA is a career platform aimed at connecting international students and graduates from leading universities in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area with locally-based companies.
The ITEA event offers a unique opportunity to meet employers, gain insight into the international labour market in Amsterdam, build the network, and orient themselves towards a future career.
For more details about the event, check here.
Digital Society School
Digital Society School is part of the Faculty of Digital Media and Creative Industries, part of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.
The platform offers an online and offline training ground on topics around Digital Transformation & Design, Diversity & Inclusion, and Ethics & Sustainability, tailored to students’ learning needs.
Enrolled students can work with a team consisting of designers, programmers, social/digital media experts, researchers, copywriters, and storytellers.
In 20 weeks (from Feb-Jun or Sep-Jan) the team develops a working prototype in collaboration with the partner. The team will be working 5 days a week in Studio HvA or at the partner’s office.
More information can be found here.
Master Challenge
Master Challenge is on a mission to close the gap between university and industry. The platform enables educators to find real-life company challenges that can be easily matched to their students.
The Amsterdam-based platform allows students to gain relevant experience, educators to improve their course, and companies to get their challenges solved.
Bit Academy
Based out of Amsterdam, Bit Academy is fighting the shortage in tech talent through its tech education platform. Bit Academy lets users learn the skills of a full-stack web developer or junior data engineer for free via the NL Leert Door subsidy.
Students are coached by professionals in the field, ensuring an evolving curriculum that reflects the latest advances in technology and cutting-edge techniques, says co-founder Dennis Berkhof to I am Amsterdam.
According to Berkhof, at the end of the programme, students can enter university or the workforce – as software developers, engineers, AI programmers, and more – both at the top of the game and agile enough to adapt.
How partnering up with Salesforce helped him succeed!
