Young Founders Summit is an incubator program for aspiring founders (students ages 15 - 20, from all over Asia) to find your co-founders, access mentors, experts, and capital to build your startup.

It’s a 6-month program that runs from December 2024 to June 2025.

The program comprises:

1. Find Your Co-Founders: A 5-day in-person (overnight) bootcamp in Singapore, with workshops, masterclasses, fireside chats with founders, and fun networking activities. You should find your co-founders here!

2. Build Your Startup: 6-months of mentorship for teams that are formed. Teams would meet with your mentors twice a month.

3. Pitch for Funding: Return with your product/service and pitch at Demo Day for grant and funding

The 5-day in person bootcamp from 16 - 20 December will be held at either at the premises of Singapore Management University or at ACE Ideation Centre, in Singapore.

For 2024, we will be staying at Alma House.

(Note that locations are subject to change annually)

The 6-month mentorship thereafter will be done virtually.

This program is designed for high school and pre-university students between the ages of 15-20.

In addition to the age requirement, you must also be proficient in English. Our participants usually hail from Asia. We don’t exclude students from other countries, provided you’re able to work cross-borders.

You don't need previous knowledge about startups or entrepreneurship, nor any coding or technical skills.

What we are looking for are:

1. Curiosity - is there a problem you really want to solve?

2. Drive and Resilience - Are you motivated enough to keep at this?

3. Growth Mindset - The mentors have so much knowledge to share - But are you coachable?

We welcome individuals, but you can also apply to join together with a friend (or friends).

You do not need to have any existing ideas to apply or to join.

This 6-month program includes a 5-day in person residential bootcamp in Singapore.

Thanks to the support of National Youth Council of Singapore, we are able to run this intensive high-impact program at a heavily subsidized rate. If you’re selected for this program, you will only need to pay a S$500 fee, which goes towards covering your accommodation for 5 nights and meals during the 5 days in Singapore. You will also need to arrange for your own flight to Singapore.

You won’t need to pay any fees for mentorship, workshops, masterclasses, and networking activities.

But please don’t let the fee stop you!

Scholarship / Financial Aid:

‍Our commitment is to support ambitious students regardless of their financial situation. We are committed to providing scholarship/financial aid.

After you’re accepted into the program, students can apply for scholarship / financial aid. We do this to provide a needs-blind experience throughout our application process so every student can go through the process equally (Basically, needing a scholarship will not affect your acceptance into the program).

Please don’t let your financial situation stop you from applying.

Our YFS alumni have been accepted into universities such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, Georgia Institute of Technology, John Hopkins, University of California San Diego, University of Edinburgh and more.

Our alumni have also received awards from The Princess Diana Award, Rise Global Winner, and Masason Foundation (Softbank founder Masayoshi Son’s foundation).

We’ve also supported our alumni in securing internships with tech companies.

We expect that up to 40% of the participants would be from Singapore, up to 40% shall be participants from Southeast Asia, and another 20% from rest of Asia / World.