A fantastic summer program for people who are exploring the possibility of starting their own company. The summer school 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 in EIA summer classes allows you to make these decisions on your own so you start realizing it is not that easy.

Because of EIA summer program, I received several job offers from companies in Silicon Valley and Germany. So I’ve definitely come back home a lot more determined and driven as well as focus and clear minded on what I want to achieve in my career — but most of all I can say I met a lot of amazing people who I’m sure I’ll be friends with for the rest of my life.

In EIA 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. In EIA 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!

EIA is destinctive on a couple of dimensions: first - it is 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 tree weeks is also incredible. You are working with cross-cultural teams from different backgrounds that brng a diverse set of experiences - it can be really important from the business perspective, but more importantly its just a lot of fun!

EIA mixes a elements like building a product, getting mentorship and hands-on advice that I have never seen done before. Hackathons end with langindpages, accelerators meet once a week and they can lose focus, but EIA packs everything from idea all the wat to customer aquisition into a 3 week intensive program and there are mentors walking you and guiding you through to ensure that you get it done in a right way, with industry standard tactics and really get your product off the ground.

The program provides an entrepreneurship school in a setting that doesnt depend on the lectures and text books. We build companies here and learn by doing. Everybody rolls up their sleeves and builds companies from scratch.

EIA helped me improve my social skills, approach people, build friendships, find out quickly how the other person can help you move forward with your business idea.

The program was easily one of the best experiences I've had. Being around so many focused and driven people got me excited right from the start and the opportunity to get feedback and to learn from people with incredible success stories has made me rethink my work method completely. I've made friends for life in only 3 weeks and I now know that I definitely want to start my own business.

To me EIA represents a community of entrepreneurs that span across the globe. Entrepreneurs, investors, university partners, corporate partners - the full spectrum of what it takes to really push forward the ecosystem of the global startup community.

MacEwan University has enjoyed a partnership with the European Innovation Academy (EIA) since 2016. The EIA is an educational platform that provides students with a once in a life time educational experience. Our students have said that the experience is more than the amazing speakers, access to the best mentors and the focused entrepreneurial methodology taught. It is also what they learn about themselves through the immersion into a new culture, the intercultural team development and learning about failure and resilience. The experience for our students has unleashed the entrepreneur within for many and for others it provided a new lens to create value in the work they do.