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Turning Lemon into Lemonade: MindCET Online Accelerator

With the new world normal startling us right when we were about to launch our 8th cohort, we jumped into the challenge: a full-online program. We didn’t imagine that social distancing would last so long, and considered to delay the start by 2-3 month and do our usual great thing. But then, we saw unique opportunities on this challenge, especially do what we preach about – to move on to new methods of learning, connecting and sharing.

We realized we can’t copy and paste our existing program to the online world, so we had to rebuild it. Small bites of content (no one can concentrate a whole day in front of Zoom), interactive sessions and discussions, lots of 1:1 office hours with professionals, with mentors and with MindCET team experts.

We discovered a whole new world of opportunities.
– Startups from any part of the world could finally join us, giving us the honor to work with amazing entrepreneurs from Italy, South Africa and Mexico, alongside the Israeli ones (huge respect to Mariana from Mexico, who never missed a session despite the challenging time difference, and often joined us in the middle of her night).
– We had the amazing opportunity to work with MindCET global network, top EdTech experts from Japan, UK, France, Germany, US, Brazil, Mexico, China, India and more! They joined us as speakers and mentors. They introduced us to the landscape, challenges and opportunities of their local markets, consulted on product-market-fit, sales, marketing, business models, investments and more – contributing their time and expertise to the new generation of startups.
We could not include the international trips this year, but we barely missed it, with all the significant international EdTech figures in our Zoom room (well, to be honest, we would also be happy to visit London, Austin, Beijing, New Delhi and other world cities, again soon).

These two benefits aligned perfectly with our main agenda since they are the focus of our acceleration program, which cross borders and reach global markets.

So, MindCET turned the lemon into a lemonade.
But, we cannot neglect the significant value of the physical program, especially the bonding aspect. When we bring EdTech entrepreneurs to the same room, working in the same space, great things happen. Partnerships, connections, and emotional-mental support, essentials on this thrilling and crazy startup journey – knowing you’re not alone, pushing yourself forward while watching others make progress. Our next challenge will be to crack up ways to reach the same outcomes.

The COVID19 crisis put a spotlight on EdTech, there’s a huge raise of interest in understanding new learning needs, finding new solutions and exploring how to best match them with emerging educational challenges.
MindCET has strengthen its road towards a global network to promote EdTech, and we invite you all to join us.