Changemakers

• A 2-day immersion bootcamp to help you understand the problem you are trying to solve, how you can have an impact on the world and get ready for the journey that is to come.
• Hands-on weekly workshops to help you embrace the concepts behind project success – from solving an unmet need to pretotyping and assessing impact.
• An inspiring half-day excursion to discover your authentic leadership skills.
• Community sessions where you will meet sustainability-driven innovators, and get to know yourself and the other participants a little better.
• A Final Award Ceremony where you will pitch your project and progress to a broad public audience.
• Finally, you can expect to have a lot of fun during the sessions and with the people you’ll meet. From experience, Changemakers become good friends during the program!

• You get dedicated coaching to help guide you or your team and your project.
• You will meet a wide range of innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership and sustainability experts in the workshops and dedicated coaching sessions.
• Peer-to-peer exchanges with the other participants, and other EPFL student entrepreneurs.
• Through the Changemakers network, you will make connections with like-minded students and meet potential partners.

• Access to The Station, a student entrepreneur space, 7/7 days.
• Opportunity to access to the tools at the SPOT (eligibility on a case-by-case basis)
• Awards and prizes for the best projects at the Award Ceremony

Day One: On the first day of the Bootcamp, you will be introduced to the program details while getting to know your program peers and their entrepreneurial ideas. In the afternoon, you will join an interactive leadership workshop to build your communication and collaboration skills as a future leader.

Day Two: In the morning, you will learn about the foundations of design thinking for innovation and explore how you will build your idea into a real startup project throughout the next 10 weeks. After lunch, you will learn how to design the value proposition of your idea, including the benefits and features that your idea offers.

Attendance to the 2 days of Bootcamp is mandatory to continue the program.

To turn your idea into a solution that’s desired by people, it is important that you understand your target users’ problems and needs. In this workshop, you will identify who your users, beneficiaries and customers are and plan how you will interview them to better understand the problem(s) that you’re trying to solve.

In groups, you will discuss the key challenges that you’re facing in your user empathy research and project, and together brainstorm on how you can resolve those blockers. The program’s coaches will also advise you on your work. 

It’s important to test your idea with real people to validate whether your solution has real potential. In the third week of the program, you will create mockup landing pages that showcase your solution. You will test these landing pages on your users, friends and peers to gather user feedback and identify ways to improve your solution. 

It’s time for some external feedback! You will pitch your project to a panel of experienced entrepreneurs who will share their feedback on the problem you are addressing, the user needs you’ve identified and how desirable your solution is.   

To bring your solution to life, you need to define how your users will learn about your solution, how they’ll get their hands on it and how they’ll use it. In this workshop, you will decide how you want your users to experience your solution, step-by-step, so that you know exactly what to create and how to launch it to get your first customers.

After 5 weeks of hard work, it’s time to check-in with yourselves and your motivation levels. In this workshop, you will participate in personal leadership exercises on self-awareness, resilience and purpose to help you stay committed to your entrepreneurial vision.  

It’s time for another round of feedback! You will pitch your progress, including the detailed user experience that you’ve created, to a panel of experienced entrepreneurs who will coach you on how to push your project further.

In this workshop, you will learn about cost structures and revenue models to make your entrepreneurial project financially viable. You will also identify the key resources that you will need to bring your project to life and how you can source them.

Being a successful innovator in the 21^st century requires a sustainability vision that thoughtfully considers economic, social and environmental impact in the short and long term. In this workshop, you will define how you can have a desirable and viable business that also positively contributes to the planet and future generations.

As the program comes to its final weeks, it’s time for the last round of feedback from pitch coaches. You will pitch your business model and sustainability vision to experienced entrepreneurs for final feedback before the award ceremony.  

In this last workshop, you will learn about different pitching techniques and you will create your own 90-second pitch. You will practice amongst your peers and receive feedback on how to improve your presentation skills.

You will pitch your project in 90 seconds to the public for a chance to earn awards.