Program Dates
BETA Camp Summer is a 6-week program that runs from July 5 - August 12 2022.
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‍Session Timing
Live sessions are Monday through Thursday from 12-3 PM EST.

Beyond this time for live sessions, each week students typically spend 1-2 hours on the student portal going through on-demand lectures of the week and 15-20 hours working on their startups.

Curriculum and Startup Team Details
Startup teams of 5-6 are formed in the second week of BETA Camp. Students will have many opportunities to meet and work together with peers to choose their own teams. Startup teams receive two 30 min startup guidance sessions/week

See below for a week-by-week curriculum overview:

What the live sessions of a week would look like:

Program Dates
BETA Camp School Year is a 12-week program that runs from November - March on Saturdays from 12:00 - 3:30 PM EST.

There will be no sessions on American Thanksgiving weekend or for Christmas Break.
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‍Session Timing
Live sessions are held once a week and are 3.5 hours long. Beyond this time for live sessions, students typically spend 1 hour on the student portal going through on-demand lectures of the week, 3-10 hours working on their startups, and 1 hour at BETA Camp socials each week.

Curriculum and Startup Team Details
Students in the School Year cohorts form teams of 5-6 at the end of Week 2 based on a combination of their own selected team members and those matched based on personality, skillset, and interest by the BETA Camp staff. Students will receive weekly startup guidance in this 1:5 format.

Students will follow the same curriculum as in the summer but will instead have 2 weeks to complete each module.

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The Summer and School Year program follow the same curriculum. The only difference is the program duration: 6 weeks for summer and 12 weeks for school year. This means that students have twice the amount of time to build their startups but must do it in parallel with school.

You should choose the best timing for you based on when you will be able to commit the most amount of time to BETA Camp.

The amount of time you put into your startup will determine how successful it becomes. So we hope that you allocate the appropriate time to make the most out of the program.

Summer students should expect to commit to BETA Camp as a full time program at least for the last 4 weeks of the program.

School Year students should expect to commit 3 hours on weekends and 5-10 hours weekly on the program.

In order to participate in BETA Camp, students must be between the ages of 11-18. Gap year students are also able to apply.

Our ideal candidate is a high school student or rising high school student who is ambitious, driven and curious. They are forever learning and keen on taking action within their circle of influence.

We do not require any previous knowledge in business, technology, or entrepreneurship - only an open mind and demonstrated passion.

1. Are you curious?

At BETA Camp, we look for people who are always looking to learn new things, whether it be about emerging technologies, different aspects of entrepreneurship, or potential career paths in business!

We provide so many resources at BETA Camp so we hope to find students that are going to be a sponge and soak it all up!

2. Are you driven?

We value the self-motivated go-getters! What have you done to pursue your interests and make a difference in your community?

We look for people who are always looking for problems and thinking about solutions.

Building a startup is no easy task and the weeks at BETA Camp will be intense. We are looking for motivated students that are going to push through and put a lot in to really get that transformation!

3. Are you open-minded?

Are you open to new ideas and concepts? Furthermore, are you willing to get out of your comfort zone and push yourself in different ways? If so, you'll make the most out of BETA Camp!

A piece of advice that our Camp Directors and Camp Counselors give every cohort is that "If you want to grow really fast, you need feedback loops from people you trust."

People that you trust to give you good feedback to act on is often hard to find, but not at BETA Camp.

You'll receive feedback at every workshop and weekly at your startup guidance sessions.

Imagine making the same mistakes or doing the same thing over and over again without anyone to show you how to do it better or not even knowing there's anything you could be doing better!

This is why we need students open to receiving feedback and surrounding themselves with smarter people. Ask for feedback on your work, your leadership skills, and your growth.

At BETA Camp, the only competition you have is with yourself. Admission is selective but we don't have an enrolment cap. All qualified students will be accepted and accommodated for without losing personalized attention and experience. We prioritize two things: your ability to contribute to a team and your go-getter attitude.

The application process includes 5 short answer questions and the required submission of your transcript and resume.

We accept students on a rolling basis at the end of each calendar month with a final application deadline of Friday, September 24th for the Fall/Winter program.
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Instead of trying to make a offline program adaptable online, we designed for this program to be virtual from the start. We plan on always sticking to a virtual program.

There are so many advantages to online learning.

1. We can continue bringing in instructors from the world’s top companies so students get exposure and discover careers outside of their communities. For example, the Head of Innovation at IKEA based at IKEA headquarters in Sweden teaches our Design Thinking workshop.We’ve had exceptional instructors like senior engineers at Waymo, Google’s self driving car unit, to CEOs of billion dollar companies come in to run workshops. You can’t find that at your locally based extracurricular program.

2. Students can work with likeminded peers across the continent and the world.Being able to work across cultures with people from different backgrounds is a skill all employers will look for. Our students love that they can be in Toronto and work with team members in Florida, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, London England, and Vancouver!

3. Tech-enabled learning is better than offline learningWith the internet, the world is at your fingertips. We use remote work tools instead of what's available for their online school. For example, we use https://miro.com/app/ for collaborating. It's so much better than pen and paper or a whiteboard. Students can use templates, color code, set timers to vote for the best ideas, paste in information from elsewhere on the internet.Most of our weekend workshops involve building a landing page and using existing online tools to reach customers, build products/services, and do research - all done online anyway.

When used properly, an online environment is more engaging for learning. You can read all the testimonials our students have written about our virtual learning and how our alumni have found BETA Camp to be more engaging and interactive than online programs they have been part of in Success Stories.
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Summer Program:
$250/week ($1500 total) paid in two installments

School Year Program
$125/week ($1500 total) paid in monthly installments

We offer financial bursaries that cover up to 80% of the fees for students whose family or caregivers earn a combined income of less than $65,000 (USD equivalent) per year. In order to apply, families are asked to submit household proof of income validated by a third-party source for the last two years. Examples include T4s in Canada, W2s in the US, etc.

Students must apply for financial bursaries in their application.

BETA Camp helps middle school and high school students build leadership skills and find their passion. But why is this important?

Passion

Harvard looks for passion. Google looks for passion. Startups look for passion. BETA Camp also looks for that internal spark of passion.

What exactly is passion and why does every competitive program or opportunity look for it?

Everyone has something they are passionate about. It could be a book you have read, a game you play, a side hustle, an instrument, a sport, a movie, playing video games - whatever. Everyone has something.

When someone asks you what you are passionate about, it's a chance for you to be a teacher and show clarity, enthusiasm, and lucidity.

By talk about passion, we get to see if you are a learner.

Whether you dig beyond the obvious.

Whether you break down and reason why things are the way they are as you spend hours pouring over this passion.

Labels fall away when you talk about passion and you see a person who cares about something to know it better than anyone else in the world (in their mind).

Many top students who go to top schools suddenly look like boring, box-checkers and are too busy following the normal path to have a passion so they talk about something safe.

The people who truly think for themselves are able to talk about aerospace, poverty, League of Legends, anime, and find the unique points that only someone who is passionate knows. You become a genius hidden in plain sight, it shows us how hard you can work to be the best when you are committed.

What we encourage students to do at BETA Camp is to pursue their passion. We validate that only by being passionate and seeing beyond the obvious will give them insights to build something amazing.

For example, a team that loved playing video games have built a monetized community and competition for small Twitch streamers to network. Another team passionate about mental health built a digital marketplace where teens get to try out group therapy before committing to a therapist.

Leadership

Before leaders become great at inspiring followers, they are first doers.

Leaders take action.

This can start in middle school and high school. But what does true leadership mean?

Who sounds more impressive to an admissions officer:

1. Someone who built a game as a side project and got hundreds of users from the appstore, did an unpaid internship at a local startup helping with backend development

OR

2. Someone who claims they want to be an engineer but has never written a line of code outside their computer science class?

Another example:

1. Someone who has written multiple marketing articles and started a marketing agency providing social media and content marketing services to small businesses by sourcing them through direct messaging on Instagram

OR

2. Someone who claims they are passionate about business but has just created marketing posters for fundraisers at school?

Who shows more genuine interest and passion? Who looks like they would be a good leader in the student community with sufficient experience?

At BETA Camp, students are passionate creators. You have to build and create the change you see in the world and it's not done through writing business plans or theoretical proposals!

We know there are an abundance of amazing middle school and high school summer programs, entrepreneurship programs, and leadership programs for high school students - what makes BETA Camp different?

1. You have full ownership of your startup. You have the freedom to choose what to build and where you take it after BETA Camp.

Unlike Junior Achievement where "JA" needs to be attached or accelerators that take a percentage of ownership in your company, what you build at BETA Camp is fully yours!

2. BETA Camp is not a case competition, design project, proposal, mockup, or a hackathon. You will learn to build a real business with real world implications and monetization strategies. You may fail as many first time founders do, but you'll learn more from this hands-on experience than in any classroom.

There are no strict guidelines on what you can accomplish at what time. Your startup is your baby and you own your own success or failure with it. But we will provide you structured guidance and the exact playbook to make it successful!

You get to see immediate results when you put what you learn to the test and learn on the fly!

There are no tests, quizzes, or preparation for a case. Your results on your startup will show for itself! This is not online school where you get lectured at! All workshops are interactive and hands-on and we don't treat you like students - you are business owners!

3. All of our lessons and workshops are taught by Camp Counselors who are industry professionals working at the forefront of innovation. They are business leaders, tech innovators, and founders with real experience in what they are teaching.

Since they are working in the fields you want to be in, they also bring relatable and insightful information when it comes to career development and jobs.

No fluff, we give you the hours they work, the problems they solve, and the boring daily tasks they still have to do. We learned that CEOs double as janitor and the delivery person for their startups + everything in between!

Being born virtual, these Camp Counselors come from all around the world. Hear from engineers fromGoogle, investment bankers from Wall Street, digital nomads traveling the world, and founders from Silicon Valley.
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After BETA Camp it is up to you and your team whether you would like to continue building the same startup.

We have had multiple startups continue after BETA Camp with the full team or part of the team. Other alumni choose to startup new startups with friends they met at BETA Camp or friends from school. Others choose to take on internships.

Regardless of what you choose, the skills you take away from BETA Camp will help you succeed as an entrepreneur, in the workplace, or on any team (even STEM research teams!).

After BETA Camp, students will have the option to continue building leadership skills in our alumni-only program: Masterminds.

Masterminds will be conducted in small 5-6 person pods (students will be with the same pod each month) led by a facilitator.

Each week, students will focus on developing and practicing key skills like:
- Mental models for decision making and problem-solving
- Performative Speaking
- Frameworks for prioritization
- Reflection and self-discovery
- Leadership and Teamwork

The curriculum is developed through inspiration from life-changing programs like Interpersonal Dynamics at Stanford (I have taken) and Wharton MBA Leadership courses (Yifan has taken). These are lessons that global leaders are taking for their own self-development because the difference between mediocracy and those that become leaders are these core skills.

Mastermind students will also have priority on any apprenticeship or internship opportunities.
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