First Start Smart courses have started for young newcomers
The UPBEAT project recently launched its first Start Smart courses in April, with parallel training sessions conducted by two project partners: Startup Refugees in Finland and the Estonian Refugee Council in Estonia. Project aims to support young newcomers (age 15 – 29) in starting their own businesses in Finland or Estonia. Course was designed in collaboration with three project partners. Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences led the curriculum design and development of AI tools for the course.
In the first round, altogether over 30 participants joined the courses, focusing on learning to use AI tools as smart assistants in their entrepreneurial journey. The course includes a kickoff session, four weekly modules, and one shared Hackathon event organized as a cross-border activity for participants in both countries.
First impressions from trainers
Muntaser Mazen Al-Hamad, trainer in Startup Refugees:
”What truly surprised and inspired me as an instructor was the dedication of some participants who traveled up to five hours to attend in person. The group represented a diverse mix of ages, backgrounds, and skill levels, yet all shared a common eagerness to explore how AI can be used to develop innovative business ideas.
Throughout the course, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback. One participant shared, “Each session is valuable and full of insights. The content, information, attachments, and links are extremely helpful. The ChatGPT prompts and the tutors are excellent. Thank you for providing this training.” Another commented, “Every part was and is valuable. It would have been great if the sessions had more time for discussion and practice.” Suggestions also included incorporating interactive elements like online games related to startups and entrepreneurship. The success and enthusiasm around this course highlight the growing interest in AI among youth and the importance of making such training more accessible and interactive in the future.”
Ilya Vasilyev, trainer in Estonian Refugee Council:
”I started my training by saying that I don’t like to give one-way lectures and be a talking head. So I asked our participants to help me turn it into a dialog and to interrupt me whenever they needed to. And oh boy, I was not disappointed. Because of all their questions we covered so many topics outside the main program (from how self-driving cars are learning in simulated environments, to how politeness does not make sense with current LLMs). We had a case study of my Gen AI works, which include text, image, video, transcription, voice, music generation. And many-many other things for which I was not even preparing.
It is so amazing to see curious people who are about to start their own entrepreneurship journey, and how open they are to new knowledge. And of course practice: everyone spent a fair share of time prompting different models and using new prompting techniques. The best indicator of the engagement for me is for how long people stay after the session is over, just to keep chatting and asking questions. Almost everyone in our group stayed for an extra 15 minutes.”
More about Start Smart course in Haaga-Helia news
