Tik Tok, Spotify and Amazon come to Porto to boost innovation for more than five hundred students

Classes are about to start at the European Innovation Academy (EIA), the largest academy of entrepreneurship and innovation in the world that, starting last Sunday and until 2026, will have a home in Porto. From July 17th to August 5th , 550 students from 120 universities around the world will learn how to create their startup with experts from companies like Tik Tok, Spotify or Amazon.

ChillTime’s Chief Executive, Daniel Vila Boa oversees the EIA mentoring program and reinforces how this academy “is known for its entrepreneurial spirit and is home to many highly successful startups and companies ”. Over three weeks, students have the help of 100 national and international mentors in the development of prototypes, customers acquisition and in conducting a pitch to attract investment.

Reagan Fry, product leader at Tik Tok, is among the mentors of the European Innovation Academy and comes to Porto to share with young future entrepreneurs the mission that the social network assumes to “offer economic opportunities to creators who inspire creativity, bring joy and provide value” to users.

From the giant Amazon, product manager Joselyn Jang, will guide students in the marketing area, while Nadia Salem, product leader of Spotify, will share experience in Data Science area.

This year, the academy will also host the Porto Startup Expo, on the 29th of July, where it will be possible to see the work developed by the students’ teams during the first days of the EIA. During the fair, visitors will have the opportunity to learn about new trends in the startup ecosystem and in the field of entrepreneurship, find collaborators for their ideas, as well as help and advise these companies at an early stage, while witnessing how far these student’s ideas arrive in only ten days.

In parallel, the Global Entrepreneurship Education Summit (GEES) will also take place on the 28th and 29th of July, with representatives from the participating universities, where the focus will be on the teaching entrepreneurship at an international level.

From the 27th to the 29th of July, the Santander x EIA Epix Program ends in Porto, with the marketing aspect, which brought together 175 students in a nine-week program.

The European Innovation Academy has the support of Porto City Hall and will take place at the Colleges of Economics and Engineering of the University of Porto. With a total of 700 participants from 42 different nationalities and 40 representatives from universities around the world, the initiative also has the Fundação Santander, Beta-i, Google, Berkeley University and Stanford University as partners.

When presenting the 2022 edition of the EIA, the vice-Mayor of Porto stressed that “it has been the purpose of this Executive to provide the city with innovative tools to create added value and more qualified work”.

Filipe Araújo, who also oversees Innovation and Digital Transition, highlighted the “strategic plan and continuous effort of the municipality to connect with its partners, in order to promote the city as a whole,” through the ScaleUp Porto initiative.

Created in Estonia in 2011, EIA has been present in Portugal for five years, and also takes place in Hong Kong, Italy, or Qatar.