SCHOOL YEAR PROGRAM

Accelerate your path to changing the world

BETA Academy is for young leaders who want to learn how to solve the world's most pressing problems and get real-world experience today. Students get hands-on experience working in teams and building a real business - not a business plan.

BETA Academy helps you build the skills you need to succeed like no other education experience through world-class instructors, in-depth curriculum with tactical hands-on learning, and a powerful community.

February 4 - April 29 2023
Workshops Saturdays, 12 - 3:30 pm EST
$750 per month or $2000 for 3 months
Applications for Fall Programs will open in June 2023.
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Cianna Williams
Milton Canada

"BETA Camp has been the best summer program I have participated in thus far. The endless resources — especially the experienced guest speakers. Connecting with others who are all as interested as I am in this field was one of the best feelings, especially when able to challenge my limits alongside them."

Tehseen Daha
Toronto

"BETA Camp has exceeded expectations! I not only got to actually build a startup, but I got to meet people working in my dream job and learn from their experiences, learn business concepts not taught in school, and develop a network of like minded individuals who I will keep friends with for life."

Megan So
Los Angeles CA

"I think BETA Camp is definitely one of a kind. The connections I've made with my team and close we've gotten is absolutely crazy. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience and I wouldn't have traded it for the world!"

Noora Aka
New York City

"BETA Camp has truly changed my life. It's ignited a passion for entrepreneurship in me that I never thought was there before and I'm so grateful for the invaluable experience I've gained because of it. I've met so many new friends and gained so many new skills!"

Aayan Siddiqui
Toronto, Canada

"One of the most valuable things I've taken away is the importance teamwork. At BETA Camp we're constantly put into situations where we have to work with new people. We need to push each other if we want to maximize our potential."

Madi Huang
Boca Raton, Florida

"I've done multiple entrepreneurship programs for high school students. Even though they were in person and had smaller class sizes - BETA Camp is was a lot more engaging and interactive. I've never connected with peers like I have at BETA Camp.

Jack Perrow
Oakville Canada

"When I joined BETA Camp I was very shy, but BETA Camp has helped me branch out and become better at public speaking. I got out of my introverted shell and learned ways to turn being a high school entrepreneur into an advantage."

Zemra Lena
Anchorage Alaska

"BETA Camp makes learning virtually so interactive! I'd recommend it to every high school student even if they aren't interested in Business, Entrepreneurship, or Tech because what you are learning can be applied to all career fields."

Michelle Hong
Ottawa, Canada

"Other tech and business programs for high school students I have participated in have been theoretical. I never was able to put any of the plans into action. I appreciate that BETA Camp is aimed to help ALL teams develop and launch a real business!"

Zoya Khan
Milton Canada

"BETA Camp really opened up my mind to new opportunities I would never be exposed to during school, or any other leadership programs for high school students. It gave me confidence in myself that I can achieve anything I set my mind to."

Borna Shani
Vancouver Canada

"BETA Camp was much more extensive than any other summer program for high school students as it did not only scratch the surface of business topics, many of our sessions delved very deep into them, which were great learning opportunities for me."

Shakeel Majeed
London England

"BETA Camp is what Y-Combinator is to Adults; a startup accelerator that changes your life prospects right from day 1. BETA Camp is unique in the way it teaches theory you can immediately apply to your startup."

Sarah Chan
Niagara Canada

"I didn't think that I would have much to take away from BETA’s exposure to incredible speakers in lead positions of the world’s greatest companies. But I was proven wrong. It opened up a world of possibilities for me, painting a clearer picture of future roles I can now work towards."

What's Included?

45+ hours

of live sessions of interactive workshops led by our team of professionals

25+ hours

of on-demand lecture content inspired by startup incubators and top MBA programs

6 hours

of 1:1 startup team mentorship with experienced entrepreneurs and alumni mentors

24/7

asynchronous support through Discord

350+

young leaders in our network to work and build lifelong relationships with

One unforgettable semester

The BETA Camp Experience

Step 1: Learn the Fundamentals

Our proprietary curriculum is based on top MBA classes (at Harvard, Stanford and Wharton) and Silicon Valley incubators (at Google and Y-Combinator). Lectures are delivered in byte sized 2 to 10 min videos tailored for the GenZ learner.

2. Company Challenges

Practice the lessons you learned from the student portal in company challenges where you work on problems that real companies are currently facing. We've worked with organizations like Skip the Dishes and Copy.Ai

Step 3: Workshops

We teach HOW to think not WHAT to think. Our leadership workshops for high school students are focused on growing your success toolkit and cover impactful topics like negotiations, money management and problem solving with data —skills you’ll use repeatedly during the course of your career.

4. Founder Fireside Chats

Connect with inspiring founders who have built their startups from the ground up and ask them all your burning questions.

Step 5: Career Explorer

Attend intimate, small group Q&A discussions with professionals from a wide array of careers. From traditional corporate paths to startup roles to freelancing remote workers and unconventional career paths, we cover everything that’s out there so you can have a better understanding of the possibilities in your future.

Step 2: Active Learning

Get hands-on experience and practice concepts from the student portal in Company Challenges hosted by top firms. We work with organizations like Skip the Dishes and IKEA to solve their most pressing problems.

Step 4: Founder Fireside

Connect with inspiring founders who have built their startups from the ground up and ask them all your burning questions.

Step 6: Build A Startup

We learn what we do, not what we're told. This is why BETA Camp emphasizes "doing".

By the end of the program, students will have built a working business that solves a problem for real customers. Throughout this journey, students learn to:

◘ Solve interesting problems
◘ Find and curate information
◘ Connect unrelated ideas
◘ Ask good questions
◘ Lead, negotiate, and communicate
◘ Employ a variety of mental models
◘ Fail and pivot
◘ Face unpredictability and uncertainty when there are no right answers

How we teach at BETA Camp

Students learn from industry experts and real-world experience instead of through textbooks and theory. Instead of passively listening to lectures, you'll get more interactive experiences, small group discussions, hands-on projects, feedback & mentorship, Q&A, role-playing, and a lot of community & networking.

A Sample of the Topics Covered

Leadership training for high school students

Design Thinking Workshop

Analyzing Data

Critical Thinking

Networking

Delivering Results

Self-Directed Learning

Sales and Negotiations

Building a website or app as an MVP

Building workflows and operations

Decisions making with consequences

"BETA Camp taught me essential skills that can be leveraged in both the business world and in life."

-Shreeya Patel, BETA Camp Fall 2020 alum
Now studying Computer Science at Columbia University


"BETA Camp emphasized problem-oriented outlooks and made sure that we had the skill set to succeed in the future. The best part was working on our idea and seeing the traction for our business. It was a unique way to learn about entrepreneurship."

Curriculum

Foundations

Learn the fundamentals of business, technology, and entrepreneurship. This includes exploring up and coming technologies and industries that will drive innovation, the risks and rewards of different types of entrepreneurship, and ways to differentiate from competition.

Live workshops in this phase are focused on helping students break down big problems into actionable steps, recognize pain points they experience themselves, and discover how to work on a team with peers with different opinions and skillsets.

Career Exploration: See how core positions at startups and businesses look day-to-day and identify the skills it takes to break in. Learn why that role is important to the business and what pathways there are to get to that position.

Ideation

Learn multiple methods of ideation and how to evaluate whether a business is worth building. Students will learn about finding a niche in a big market, where to look for unique insights, hypothesis testing, and conducting user research.

Live workshops will include design thinking for high school students and Company Challenges on conducting experiments to determine whether a new product or service is worth building and collecting user insights and information.

Career Exploration: Get to know the innovation arm of a company and discover careers related to user experience. We'll bring in a founder to answer your burning questions about the mechanics of starting a startup, debunk myths to entrepreneurship and inspire action. Understand your own strengths and skills that you can double-down on to grow into a competitive advantage.

Build

Learn how to build a minimal viable product within 2 weeks with or without code so that you can get your startup off the ground. For the rest of the program, students will focus on iterating the business, get comfortable in making consequences decisions with incomplete information, collect, read, and understand data, and build out operations and workflows.

During this time, every live workshop will help students practice skills they need to build their startups. This learning how to handle rejection, how to write enticing copy, how to launch fast and iterate faster, and how to leverage tech to accelerate.

Career Exploration: Based on students interest in the problems they chose to pursue, we bring in professionals that work in social impact, higher education (MD, JD, PhD), digital nomads (remote work), or disruptive tech careers for Q&A.

Go to Market

Initial traction is hard to get and involves a lot of trial and error as well as pure hustle. While continuing to build and improve the product, students will learn about best practices for cold outreach, strategizing and creating the marketing funnel, and selling.

Students will get to practice creating viral content with entrepreneurs that have leveraged media like TikTok and Youtube to distribute their products/services in live workshops as well as experience real-world negotiations and sales practice.

Career exploration: Founders come in to share how they navigated the early stages of their business.

Pitch

BETA Camp concludes with a Demo Day where students share the achievements of their business in just a few short weeks. To prepare, students learn the elements of a good pitch, how to plan for future expansion and growth, and performative speaking skills.

Live workshops in this final phase include a growth and scaling Company Challenge, presentation skills practice, and analyzing market size and financial projections.

Career exploration: Hear from VCs who come in for Q&A as well as investors who are judges at Demo Day on what they look for in a successful startup and how students can start generating value today.

Setting the foundations

Learn the fundamentals of business, technology, and entrepreneurship. This includes exploring up and coming technologies and industries that will drive innovation, the risks and rewards of different types of entrepreneurship, and ways to differentiate from competition.

Live workshops in this phase are focused on helping students break down big problems into actionable steps, recognize pain points they experience themselves, and discover how to work on a team with peers with different opinions and skillsets.

Career Exploration: See how core positions at startups and businesses look day-to-day and identify the skills it takes to break in. Learn why that role is important to the business and what pathways there are to get to that position.

Ideation

Learn multiple methods of ideation and how to evaluate whether a business is worth building. Students will learn about finding a niche in a big market, where to look for unique insights, hypothesis testing, and conducting user research.

Live workshops include design thinking for high school students and Company Challenges on conducting experiments to determine whether a new product or service is worth building and collecting user insights and information.

Career Exploration: Get to know the innovation arm of a company and discover careers related to user experience. We'll bring in a founder to answer your burning questions about the mechanics of starting a startup, debunk myths to entrepreneurship and inspire action. Understand your own strengths and skills that you can double-down on to grow into a competitive advantage.

Product Market Fit and Building an MVP

Learn how to build a minimal viable product within 2 weeks with or without code so that you can get your startup off the ground. For the rest of the program, students will focus on iterating the business, get comfortable in making consequences decisions with incomplete information, collect, read, and understand data, and build out operations and workflows.

During this time, every live workshop will help students practice skills they need to build their startups. This learning how to handle rejection, how to write enticing copy, how to launch fast and iterate faster, and how to leverage tech to accelerate.

Career Exploration: Based on students interest in the problems they chose to pursue, we bring in professionals that work in social impact, higher education (MD, JD, PhD), digital nomads (remote work), or disruptive tech careers for Q&A.

Getting your first customers

Initial traction is hard to get and involves a lot of trial and error as well as pure hustle. While continuing to build and improve the product, students will learn about best practices for cold outreach, strategizing and creating the marketing funnel, and selling.

Students will get to practice creating viral content with entrepreneurs that have leveraged media like TikTok and Youtube to distribute their products/services in live workshops as well as experience real-world negotiations and sales practice.

Career exploration: Founders come in to share how they navigated the early stages of their business.

Pitching and Future Growth

BETA Camp concludes with a Demo Day where students share the achievements of their business in just a few short weeks. To prepare, students learn the elements of a good pitch, how to plan for future expansion and growth, and performative speaking skills.

Live workshops in this final phase include a growth and scaling Company Challenge, presentation skills practice, and analyzing market size and financial projections.

Career exploration: Hear from VCs who come in for Q&A as well as investors who are judges at Demo Day on what they look for in a successful startup and how students can start generating value today.

Instructors that have joined us

Dan Li

Nikolai Bain

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Design Systems in Product Design

Nikolai Bain

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Minus Aspernatur Illum

Nikolai Bain

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Ut dignissimos quasi

Nikolai Bain

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Martin Ochwat

Co-Founder of Dundas Life and Wellow. Martin has built several 7-figure eCommerce businesses.

Henry Shi

Co-Founder & CTO of SnapCommerce. SnapCommerce will surpass $1 Billion in sales in 2021.

Khaled Hussein

Founder and Managing Director of Stipple Ventures. Khaled's previous startup was acquired by Airbnb.

Jessie Duan

Chief of Staff to the CTO at Roblox. Jessie was previously an Engineering Manager at Quora

Nicole Fitzgerald

Machine Learning Research Engineer at Microsoft.

Carolyn Chen

Founder & CEO of Reset Beauty Inc. Carolyn is an expert at influencer marketing having partnered with the D'Amelio sisters.

Chris Lu

Co-founder of Copy.ai, an AI powered tool that has raised $2.3M USD. Chris has invested in 100+ startups

Kevin Kim

Co-founder & CEO of Stadium Live and previously Head of Product at Drop.

Ikenna Enwere

Bachelor of Science from MIT, his MBA from Wharton and MPP from Harvard.

Eric Chen

Eric has a Bachelor's, MBA, and MD from Yale University. He is an Anesthesiologist Resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital

Tommy Liu

Tommy is a Software Engineer at Waymo, Google's Self-Driving Car Project.

Steeve Vakeeswaran

Steeve leads Business Operations at Zapier and a guest lecturer at Columbia Business School

Connie Lo

Connie is the co-founder of Three Ships, a natural skincare line with deals at Target, Wholefoods, Nordstrom and 100s of retailers.

Brandon Hill

CEO of Vori. At 25, Brandon has founded 2 companies that have been through Y-Combinator.

Cindy Soo

Head of Innovation at IKEA. Cindy has 20+ years of experience and consults for global companies on design thinking.

Dan Li

Co-Founder and CEO at Shypyard. Harvard MBA and previously a Senior Product Manager at Linkedin

Kaitlyn Zhou

PHD Candidate at Stanford University in Computer Science

Rachel Marincola

Senior Engineer at Khan Academy, previously Engineer #10 at Doordash

Why High School Entrepreneurship Programs?

We get it - not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur
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Valuable skills

"Robots and computers will own any clearly bounded job, skill, or game. Humans should focus on creative work." - Naval

Jobs of the future will value skills like problem solving, creativity, and empathy. These skills are not taught in textbooks or classrooms and will apply even if you would like to pursue science, literature, or medicine.

Mindset for the real world

When was the last time you worked on a problem that didn't have an answer or played a game where you had to figure out the rules and goal as you played?

The real world is not like case competitions or theoretical simulations. Only through building a real business will you experience the hiccups and uncertainty of whether you will succeed with every small decision. A entrepreneurial mind ready to question everything, connect insights, experiment, and continue iterating and tweaking will never fail.

Attend an Info Session

Our founders and staff run information sessions often. Sign up to receive an invite!

Sign Up Now

Frequently asked questions

If you can't find the answer to your question, please contact us at hello@beta.camp

Do I need a startup, a startup idea, or a team before applying?

Not at all! Students are not expected to have a startup idea or a team upon joining. BETA Camp guides you through the process of ideation and using design thinking principles to narrow down the opportunity area and problem you want to tackle. Teams will be formed during the program. Students choose their teams and / or based are matched with a team based on personality, skillset, and interest by BETA Camp staff.

How do I join BETA Camp?

Students ages 13-18 may apply for an upcoming cohort at https://app.beta.camp/join

The application includes answering 3 questions and submitting your most recent school transcript. You learn more about what we look for in an application here.

How much does BETA Camp cost?

BETA Camp's Summer program is $3,750 USD for the 4-week program. We offer financial aid that covers up to 80% of the fees for students whose family or caregivers earn a combined income of less than $100,000 (USD equivalent) per year. Families may apply for financial bursaries after completing the application and being accepted to the program.

Is it online?

Yes.

BETA Camp is fully online and conducted through live interactive workshops with our mentors and instructors.

From the start, we intentionally designed BETA Camp to be fully virtual for 3 reasons:

1. You can work with instructors from the world’s top companies to get exposure and discover careers outside of of your local community. For example, the Head of Innovation at IKEA based at IKEA headquarters in Sweden has taught 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 meet and work with likeminded peers from around North America and the world. Being able to work across cultures with people from different backgrounds is a skill all employers look for. Our students love that they can be in Toronto and work with team members in California, Ecuador or England!

3. Tech-enabled learning is better than offline learning. With 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. When used properly, an online environment is more engaging and effective for learning.

You can read about students' experience with online learning program on our Success Stories page.

What are the important dates and deadlines?

BETA Camp is a 4-week program with cohorts this July and August.
July: June 28 - July 28
August: July 31 - August 25.

During both cohorts, live interactive sessions are held Monday-Friday, 12 - 3 pm EST.

Applications close June 4, 2023. Students may complete an application here.

What happens when BETA Camp ends?

BETA Camp Fellowship


After BETA Camp, students may be invited to continue their startup and entrepreneurship journey with BETA Camp's Fellowship program, an invite-only opportunity for students who have shown dedication and effort during the BETA Camp experience.During the Fellowship, students take deeper dives into different fields and career paths within tech and entrepreneurship with guidance and 1:1 support from industry mentors and coaches. The goal is to continue to develop real-life skills & assist with securing internships early.

Alumni Network & Beyond

All students are invited to our alumni community where students have the opportunity to remain connected with our vast network. Staff host bi-monthly events including networking opportunities. Some teams choose to continue with their startups (BETA Camp takes no equity or ownership with their startups). Others move to build new startups or non-profits with either the same team, their friends, or solo.We also see many students land internships through the network they built at BETA Camp with the Camp Counselors.

Who is eligible?

Students must be 13-18 years old during the program. 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 accept students globally, as long as you are able to attend the majority of our live workshops, which occur 12 - 3 pm EST (Eastern Time US).We do not require any previous knowledge in business, technology, or entrepreneurship - only an open mind and demonstrated passion.