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Non-profit · Est. 2013 · Education · Research · Innovation

The institution that teaches entrepreneurship by building it.

Name: EIA 2028 Lausanne — The HealthTech edition
Start: 2028-07-17
Location: EPFL, Lausanne

A non-profit founded in 2013 with Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University and Google. 25,000 alumni, 85+ countries, 215 universities and one mission: 100 million entrepreneurs by 2040.

Discuss a cohort EIA 2028 Lausanne

History · 2012 → 2028

A torch relay, thirteen hand-offs, one podium.

Photo credits

Nice: Spike, CC BY-SA 4.0. Berkeley: pedrik, CC BY 2.0. Turin: Berenike27, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cascais: Jorge Franganillo, CC BY 2.0. Doha: Zairon, CC BY 4.0. Shenzhen: Charlie fong, CC BY-SA 4.0. Hong Kong: yeowatzup, CC BY 2.0. Porto: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lausanne: Christian Mehlführer, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lisbon, Rome and London: see the menu photo credits. All via Wikimedia Commons.

2012–13 — The first flame in Nice. Alar Kolk, back from Stanford, and Anni Sinijärv run the first program at the University of Nice with UC Berkeley, Stanford and Google. Future founders of Bolt and Wise sit in that first hall. 80 students

2013 — Berkeley makes it official. UC Berkeley names EIA its official summer-abroad entrepreneurship program. Its largest summer cohorts have come every year since. Since 2013

2016 — EIA Italy opens in Turin. The City of Turin, Intesa Sanpaolo, FCA and Ferrero give EIA a second European home. MacEwan University joins. 500+ participants by 2018

2017 — The Atlantic edition in Cascais. Santander and NOVA join, a third summer city opens, and US faculty start leading their own cohorts. 3 cities

2018 — Three continents in one summer. Arab Innovation Academy opens in Doha with CMU Qatar, and Asia-Pacific Innovation Academy in Shenzhen. EIA becomes the world's largest extreme accelerator. 1,000+ participants a year

2019 — EIA Hong Kong. With HKPC InnoSpace and the Hong Kong Innovation Foundation. Alumni pass 10,000. 10,000 alumni

2020–21 — The relay keeps going. Online and hybrid editions run through the pandemic. The Arab Innovation Academy goes fully online. 100% delivered

2022 — EIA moves to Porto. The University of Porto's economics and engineering faculties host the flagship. 400 students · 65+ nationalities

2024 — The evidence year. Alumni have raised $2.2B and created 32,000 jobs. Peer-reviewed studies confirm the effect on intent, passion and resilience. 25,000 alumni

2025 — A new Porto venue. An auditorium, workshop floors and a rooftop over the city. The Day-10 Student Expo opens to the public. Day-10 Expo

2026 — EIA Research and EIA Ventures. Five studies with 350 randomised teams a year, and EIA Ventures starts backing alumni companies. Summer in Porto sets a world record: 80+ ventures from one cohort. 350 teams a year

2027 — Lisbon, Rome, London. Summer 2027 intakes, plus the $10,000 AI Entrepreneurship Grant for US faculty leads. 3 cities

2028 — EIA 2028 Lausanne: The HealthTech Games. See the podium. The World HealthTech Model

2028 · Lausanne, Olympic Capital · Host: EPFL

The HealthTech Games.

In 2028 EIA takes its record-holding format to Lausanne, the Olympic Capital, to build the World HealthTech Model with hundreds of student startups.

🏁 Register by summer 2027 and your team marches in under its own flag.

Records to be set in Lausanne

Fastest time to market for an early-stage healthtech startup
Most healthtech ventures founded in 3 weeks
Largest single-cohort clinical-validation sprint

Countdown to the opening day

—

days

—

hours

—

minutes

—

seconds

Opening day: July 17, 2028 · EPFL, Lausanne

Then and now

80 → 400
students per cohort: 1 → 3
cities: 0 → 25,000
alumni: 0 → $2.2B
raised by alumni: 0 → 6
world records

What we stand for

Vision

Educate 100 million entrepreneurs by 2040.

Mission

Empower and inspire a global community of innovators, transforming bold dreams into impactful realities.

Values

Why a non-profit

EIA is a registered non-profit. Surpluses fund scholarships: 78% of participants get financial support, and 86% of them could not attend otherwise.

The mission passes from cohort to cohort, like a torch. 25,000 carriers so far.

Read the EIA Impact Report

78%
of participants receive financial support: EIA Impact Report 2024; 86%
of supported participants could not attend otherwise: EIA Impact Report 2024; 100
scholarships funded by Santander every year: Santander Universidades agreement

How we teach

Facts

The numbers a committee pastes into a memo.

Scale

alumni: 25,000+; Source
EIA Alumni Survey 2024 · as of June 1, 2025
countries: 85+; Source
EIA Alumni Survey 2024 · as of June 1, 2025
universities in the alliance: 215; Source
EIA University Alliance register · as of June 1, 2026
faculty experts: 350; Source
EIA faculty register · as of June 1, 2026
students per cohort: 400; Source
EIA Portugal 2025 enrolment · as of August 1, 2025
nationalities in one hall: 65+; Source
EIA Portugal 2025 enrolment · as of August 1, 2025
programs since 2013 across France, Italy, Portugal, Estonia, Georgia, Qatar, China, Hong Kong, the UK and online: 25+; Source
Office of the President programme register · as of June 1, 2026
business customers of EIA executive programs: 200; Source
EIA executive programs register · as of June 1, 2026

Outcomes

EIA Alumni Survey 2024 and peer-reviewed studies

$2.2B
raised by alumni ventures: EIA Alumni Survey 2024; 32,000+
jobs created: EIA Alumni Survey 2024; 40%
of alumni become founders: EIA Alumni Survey 2024; 64%
of those ventures still active: EIA Alumni Survey 2024; 44%
credit EIA with a job, promotion or leadership move: EIA Alumni Survey 2024; 0% → 58%
founding intent among students with no prior startup experience: Taggar, Domurath & Coviello, Academy of Management, 2019; +1.8 / +1.6
self-efficacy and resilience on a −3…+3 scale: Brandt, 2023; +1.3
entrepreneurial passion on a 5-point scale through peer learning: Taggar, Domurath & Coviello, 2024

Recognition

The Record Board

World records in entrepreneurship

EventRecordHolderWhereWhen

Largest entrepreneurship study-abroad program400+ students, 65+ nationalities, one hall, one cohortEuropean Innovation AcademyEIA Portugal2025
Single-cohort enrolment and nationality count, EIA Portugal 2025, verified by the Council.
Largest extreme accelerator1,000+ participants a year across four continentsEuropean Innovation AcademyEIA · AIA Qatar · APIA Shenzhen · EIA Hong Kong2018
Combined 2018 enrolment across Europe, Qatar, Shenzhen and Hong Kong editions.
Most startups founded in 3 weeks80+ ventures from a single cohortEuropean Innovation AcademyEIA Porto2026
Ventures registered on the final pitch roster of one cohort.
Fastest time to market — early-stage HealthTech startupFrom team formation to first paying users inside the 3-week courseBS-AI lineage teamEIA, Porto2024
First paid transaction logged and verified before the Day-15 pitch night.
Largest one-night student investment awards€100,000 decided in a single pitch nightEuropean Innovation AcademyEIA pitch night2026
Awards announced and committed on the pitch night of one cohort.
Longest-running official university summer-abroad startup programUC Berkeley × EIA, every summer since 2013UC Berkeley × EIANice → Cascais → Porto → Lisbon2013
Continuous annual delivery as Berkeley's official Summer Abroad entrepreneurship program.

Records are held until broken. EIA 2028 Lausanne is where the next ones fall.Challenge a record →

Download the EIA Fact Sheet See the research behind the numbers

University Alliance · 215 institutions · 5 continents

Where the world's universities send their founders.

Founding and methodology partners

UC Berkeley — United States (since 2013)

Princeton University — United States (since 2019)

Carnegie Mellon University — United States (since 2014)

University of Michigan — United States (since 2017)

Arizona State University — United States (since 2018)

University of Alabama — United States (since 2018)

Villanova University — United States (since 2019)

Virginia Commonwealth University — United States (since 2017)

Washington University in St. Louis — United States (since 2019)

Texas State University — United States (since 2018)

UT San Antonio — United States (since 2019)

Texas A&M University–San Antonio — United States (since 2022)

St. John's University — United States (since 2019)

California Lutheran University — United States (since 2019)

Iona University — United States (since 2022)

Grand Valley State University — United States (since 2023)

SUNY Cortland — United States (since 2023)

Shippensburg University — United States (since 2023)

Western Washington University — United States (since 2024)

Grove City College — United States (since 2024)

MacEwan University — Canada (since 2016)

EPFL Lausanne — Switzerland (since 2026)

University of Lisbon (Técnico) — Portugal (since 2022)

NOVA University Lisbon — Portugal (since 2017)

University of Porto — Portugal (since 2022)

Sapienza University of Rome — Italy (since 2026)

City St George's, University of London — United Kingdom (since 2026)

Bayes Business School — United Kingdom (since 2026)

Lund University — Sweden (since 2018)

TU Dublin — Ireland (since 2019)

Karolinska Institutet — Sweden (since 2019)

Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences — Finland (since 2016)

FHNW — Switzerland (since 2018)

Aalto University — Finland (since 2015)

TalTech — Estonia (since 2013)

Université Côte d'Azur (Nice–Sophia Antipolis) — France (since 2012)

The University of Tokyo — Japan (since 2018)

Singapore Management University (IIE) — Singapore (since 2019)

Feng Chia University — Taiwan (since 2018)

University of Macau — Macau (since 2019)

Carnegie Mellon University Qatar — Qatar (since 2018)

Three alliance stories

Official summer program since 2013
“Every summer our largest study-abroad cohort lands at EIA. Thirteen years later the standard is still the same: build.”
Ken SingerUC Berkeley
UC Berkeley
EIA inside a master's degree
“We put EIA inside a master's degree because it does what a syllabus alone cannot: it makes students ship.”
Allison SchumacherVirginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University
Partner since 2016
“Since 2016 our students have carried the MacEwan flag into the hall — and brought companies home.”
Laura LinakerMacEwan University
MacEwan University

EPFL · 2028

The alliance meets in Lausanne

In 2028 the alliance meets at EPFL in Lausanne for the first HealthTech cohort. University teams that register in 2027 carry their flag into the opening.

Faculty at any accredited university can bring a cohort, embed the course, or co-supervise research.

Join the University Alliance Register a 2028 cohort For US University

Faculty · 350 experts · 51 in the current Lisbon pool

Coached by the people who build companies for a living.

Every team is coached daily by people who have shipped at NVIDIA, Google, Amazon, Visa and Salesforce, or who have founded, sold and funded companies. Mentors work pro bono and are picked with care.

5 mentors
1. Strategy & BusinessBusiness models, unit economics, operations.
6 mentors
2. Product, Tech & DesignMVPs, architecture, UX.
6 mentors
3. Marketing & GrowthPositioning, funnels, live campaigns with real budget.
4 mentors
4. Pitch & StorytellingNarrative, delivery, investor Q&A.
4 mentors
5. Investors & VentureThe VCs and angels who judge and fund.
4 mentors
6. Legal, IP & Founder CoachingIP, incorporation, resilience.

The people

Strategy & Business
Anchor Mentor for EIA cohorts; Google for Startups mentor on business models and go-to-market.
LinkedIn Ask about Gideon
Strategy & Business
Former Microsoft finance leader; coaches unit economics and operating plans; EIA Council member.
LinkedIn Ask about Ivo
Strategy & Business
Led innovation at IKEA; coaches teams on operations and scaling a physical product.
LinkedIn Ask about Jens
Strategy & Business
Industry Fellow at the Sutardja Center; a Berkeley faculty voice on the EIA floor every summer.
LinkedIn Ask about Rick
Strategy & Business
Strategy consultant; coaches business-model validation and pricing.
LinkedIn Ask about Rodrigo
Product, Tech & Design
Google Cloud engineer; coaches architecture and shipping an MVP in days.
LinkedIn Ask about Kirill
Product, Tech & Design
Product leader at Disney Streaming; coaches product discovery and prioritisation.
LinkedIn Ask about Isaiah
Product, Tech & Design
Microsoft engineer; coaches technical scoping and developer workflow.
LinkedIn Ask about Maido

The selection standard

3+ years in startups or top tech companies
Prior accelerator, hackathon or bootcamp mentoring
Proven team skills
Pro bono
Onboarding and training before every cohort
Eight mentor types across the pool: business, marketing, design, software, hardware, life coaches, IP lawyers, investors

2028 HealthTech bench

For Lausanne we are building a seventh bench of clinicians, medtech founders, regulatory experts and health-data scientists, drawn from EIA Ventures' portfolio and EPFL. Mentors can apply now.

Coach the 2028 HealthTech cohort

Faculty voices

“The floor at EIA is the closest thing to a real startup a student can get with a professor beside them.”
Rick Rasmussen, UC Berkeley
“I coach here because the teams ship on Tuesday what they only dreamed about on Monday.”
Dagmar Eisenbach, Salesforce

Tell us your syllabus focus and we introduce the mentors who match your learning outcomes.

Request a faculty introduction Become an EIA mentor For Mentors

Partners · a decade of corporate and public partnerships

Backed by the companies our alumni build for and compete with.

Strategic & founding partners

Google

Santander

Amadeus

Stellantis (FCA — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles)

Mercedes-Benz Group (Daimler)

Intesa Sanpaolo

Crédit Agricole

Galp

Corporate & technology

SEB

IBM

Public, academic & ecosystem

Qatar Science & Technology Park Hong Kong Innovation Foundation

Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia

NOVA University Lisbon

University of Porto

SMU Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Partner stories

Santander100 scholarships a year
Read the story ↓
Santander Universidades funds 100 EIA scholarships a year, the largest single scholarship line in the program, every summer since 2017.
▶ Why Santander funds EIA — video to be supplied
Santander
Google10 years on faculty
Read the story ↓
EIA's method was built with Google partners, and Cloud Developer Advocate Martin Omander has taught on the faculty for ten years.
“Magic happens when you put a diverse group into a room together to work on a common idea.”
Martin Omander, Google
Google
Stellantis / FCAFounding partner, EIA Italy
Read the story ↓
With the City of Turin, Intesa Sanpaolo and Ferrero, FCA gave EIA its Italian home in 2016.
“The programs of Innovation Academy enable talented individuals to start building on their dreams.”
John Elkann, Chairman
Stellantis / FCA

What partnership funds

80-scholarship campaign

€96,000 of €150,000 raised · 51 of 80 scholarships · as of 2026-09-01

Donate to the Unicorn Fund

78%
of participants receive financial support: 100
scholarships funded by Santander every year

The 2028 call

EIA 2028 Lausanne opens HealthTech partner tiers (Title, Clinical, Data and Scholarship) for pharma, medtech, insurers, hospitals and health-data companies. Partners get a first look at 80+ student healthtech ventures.

Become a 2028 HealthTech partner

Partnership formats

Corporate sponsorship
Institutional partnership
Individual contribution
2028 HealthTech partner

Partner with EIA For Partners

Leadership

The people who run it.

Executive

Diogo Forte

Chief Executive Officer

LinkedIn Reach out Book a call

Alar Kolk

President and Founder

Management team

Veiki Kolk
Chief Financial Officer
Global
Michael Adler
Sales Director, Americas
Americas
LinkedIn Reach out
Victoria Mielke
Head of US Strategic Partnerships
Americas
Reach out
Olga Reili
Sales Director, Europe
Europe
LinkedIn Reach out
Andrea Gazzola
Head of Infrastructure
Global
LinkedIn
Susana Fonseca
Head of Portuguese Relations
Europe
LinkedIn
Erica Mello
Head of Mentor Relations
Global
LinkedIn Reach out
Aija Vanaga
University Relations Specialist, Europe
Europe
LinkedIn Reach out
Juan Eraso
University Relations Specialist, Americas
Americas
LinkedIn Reach out
Vanessa Villajuan
Customer Success Specialist
Global
LinkedIn
Nacho Brusco
CRM Architect Specialist
Global
LinkedIn
Vanessa Beyloune
Growth & Marketing Specialist
Global
LinkedIn

Your contact

Based on your location. Change it if we guessed wrong.

Juan Eraso
University Relations Specialist, Americas
Book a call
Michael Adler
Sales Director, Americas
Book a call
Victoria Mielke
Head of US Strategic Partnerships
Reach out

Book a call with your regional lead Discuss a cohort

EIA Council

Governed by the people who set the standard.

The Council advises on curriculum quality, academic recognition, research integrity, the Record Board and the road to Lausanne 2028. Members serve pro bono.

Chair
Ken Singer
Chair of the EIA Council
UC Berkeley
Read bio
Managing Director, Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, UC Berkeley; faculty lead for Berkeley's Summer Abroad program at EIA since 2013; the voice of academic standards on the Council.
LinkedIn
Alar Kolk
President, European Innovation Academy
EIA
Read bio
Founder; guardian of the mission and the method. See Leadership for the full profile.
LinkedIn See Leadership
Dr. Maher Hakim
Council member
Carnegie Mellon University
Read bio
Faculty partner of EIA for more than a decade; brings CMU's engineering-entrepreneurship rigour and the Qatar programme lineage; sponsor of the 2028 research protocol.
LinkedIn
Ivo Vaks
Council member
ex-Microsoft
Read bio
Finance leader in AI, cloud and security; EIA strategy and business mentor; the operator's and corporate view on the Council; adjudicator of the Record Board.
LinkedIn

What the Council oversees

Academic quality & credit recognition
Research ethics & pre-registration
Faculty standards
Records, mission & impact reporting

Governance. EIA is a registered non-profit. It publishes an annual Impact Report, shares ethics approvals and study registrations on request, and the EIA Council checks every record against its documented basis.

Read the Impact Report Explore EIA Research

Work with EIA

Seen who we are?

Next step: a 30-minute fit call. No deck, no obligation.

1ContactTwo fields. You hear back within one business day.
2Fit call30 minutes on your students, curriculum and timeline.
3Planning pack and written quoteSyllabus, rubrics, budget in USD, grant terms.
4Internal reviewWe answer committees, education-abroad, risk and procurement directly. W-9 available.
5AgreementSigned, seats reserved, recruitment opens on campus.

Not faculty?

The institution that teaches entrepreneurship by building it.

A torch relay, thirteen hand-offs, one podium.

The HealthTech Games.

Educate 100 million entrepreneurs by 2040.

Vision: Educate 100 million entrepreneurs by 2040.

Why a non-profit

The numbers a committee pastes into a memo.

Scale

Outcomes

Recognition

World records in entrepreneurship

Where the world's universities send their founders.

Three alliance stories

The alliance meets in Lausanne

Coached by the people who build companies for a living.

The people

Faculty voices

Backed by the companies our alumni build for and compete with.

Partner stories

What partnership funds

The people who run it.

Diogo Forte

Alar Kolk

Governed by the people who set the standard.

Ken Singer

Alar Kolk

Dr. Maher Hakim

Ivo Vaks

Seen who we are?