Zero Genie

Silicon Valley may be oversaturated, but it still holds a glimmering appeal for those on the outside who want a piece of the tech mecca. Coined as a “startup heaven” for boasting superior networking and financing opportunities, many people are actually leaving the area due to high costs of living and operating. Even though people are leaving, they still wanted to connected to the benefits that Silicon Valley has to offer.

Silicon Valley Institute of Technology venture backed by Parkpine Capital noticed the trend of people leaving the valley while still wanting to be connected and on the other hand they noticed that people from all over the globe wanted to come to Silicon Valley to experience its offerings. The Institute created a two week and one year program for anyone in a technology related space. “The program is for anyone with a basic mature business sense who is keen to start, fund, or grow a tech related project, company or internal corporate initiative,” said Ahmed Shabana of Parkpine. “Attendees can expect to dive into startup leadership and technical management experiences which includes interactions with mentors in venture capital funds, media entertainment groups and technical teams in the heart of Silicon Valley.”

The Institute hopes to attract talent from over 25 countries brining diversity in race and gender into Silicon Valley. The scholarship which is focused on women in tech was developed to help offset expenses of exceptional talent that would not typically be able to afford to come to Silicon Valley. “We need more women in leading roles across the globe so we launched the scholarship in hopes of attracting talent that may have been overlooked in the past,” explains Shabana. The first immersion program takes place in January 2020.

Parkpine’s sister initiative Global Ventures Summit took Silicon Valley around the world where the demand of something like the Institute came about. “Silicon Valley isn’t just a place, it’s the talent, companies and people that make up the area. We were able to bring everything that made up Silicon Valley and bring it to different parts of the world, but that’s when we saw the demand for a program where people from around the world wanted to go immerse themselves in Silicon Valley,” said Shabana.

One of the global programs GVS has worked with was Startup GDL, which is powered by Wizeline in San Francisco, saw the same need for immersing global talent in the Silicon Valley space to then take back their learnings to their markets. Cindy Blanco is the co-founder and CEO at Startup GDL which focuses on the intersection between startup growth and career development. Blanco helps source and build talent to work for Silicon Valley companies who want to have a global presence. So programs like GVS or The Institute give Blanco another tool to help develop her talent for the brands that need top tier talent with an understanding of Silicon Valley.

The goal of the Silicon Valley Institute isn’t to poach talent from other countries to bring to the valley, but rather to give talent a crash course in everything Silicon Valley in order for them to take their learnings back to their global markets.