From Spain to Silicon Valley, A Life Changing Experience For Top Engineering Students

Not all cities are created equal when it comes to opportunities for a student to take entrepreneurial risks and start their own company. In fact, it is often argued that no where else in the world compares to Silicon Valley both for the amount of available startup capital, but more importantly the willingness of the people in Silicon Valley to suspend disbelief and support the grandiose visions of entrepreneurs young and old.

One of the biggest issues facing entrepreneurs in countries outside the United States is how failure is treated.  While Silicon Valley respects entrepreneurs who have tried, failed, and learned from their mistakes, in other countries including Italy, China, Russia, and many more, failure is seen as unacceptable and those who try and fail are thrown under the bus.  This creates huge problems for fostering a rich tech community where over 90% of companies are expected to fail but those that succeed make up the difference by many fold.

Enter StepOne an innovative program based in Spain and started by Google’s Head of Emerging Products Bernardo Hernandez.  The program seeks to bridge the gap between Spain’s top engineering students and the cutting edge ideas and culture of Silicon Valley.  Spain’s top engineering students compete to be accepted into the program which places them at a leading US startup for an internship that can last anywhere from three to nine months.  The goal is to have some of these students stay on at companies in the states, learning entrepreneurial and coding best practices that eventually will be brought back to Spain to help invigorate their burgeoning startup community.

Despite growing technical talent in other country’s around the world, the success of Silicon Valley has never been repeated, and it is exciting to see how StepOne approaches the challenge with thoughtfulness and a long term perspective.

We have been working with StepOne to help match their students with great startup companies and the degree of talent and excitement is incredible.  This video helps to showcase some of this years StepOne interns and the life-changing experience the program helped them discover.