A term. A real build.Solve real problems right in your neighbourhood.
Give your students twelve weeks to find a problem in their own neighbourhood and build something that answers it. You supply one sponsor and a room. We supply everything else.
- Cohort Size15–30 StudentsAges 14 to 19
- Duration1 Term / 12 Wks12 Weekly Sessions
- Staff Time1 Sponsor2 Hours / Week
Term-Length Builder Cohort
“12 sessions, 4 stages, one real shipped project per team.”
What a term looks like
Twelve sessions, four stages, one thing built.
It is deliberately unglamorous. The value sits in the repetition and in the fact that real users see the work.
- 1
Weeks 1–3 · Look
Students find a real problem inside five kilometres of the school gate and prove somebody actually has it.
- 2
Weeks 4–7 · Make
They build the smallest useful thing, a tool, a service, a workflow, with mentor sessions each week.
- 3
Weeks 8–10 · Test
It goes in front of real users. Most first versions fail here, on purpose, with support.
- 4
Weeks 11–12 · Show
A public showcase at your school, and the strongest teams get routed towards the Impact Challenge.
What we need from you
Four things. That is the whole ask.
- One named staff sponsor who can be in the room for the weekly session.
- A space with devices and internet for two hours a week.
- Permission for students to talk to people outside the school gate, safely and supervised.
- Honest selection: send us the curious students, not only the top of the class.
What we bring
What arrives with the cohort.
- Curriculum
Twelve session plans, slides, worksheets and mentor notes. Your sponsor facilitates; they do not have to be a technologist.
- Mentors
Practising builders and operators join by video for a weekly clinic with the teams.
- Safeguarding
Written policy, vetted mentors, sessions never one-to-one and always visible to your staff sponsor.
- Progression
Named routes onwards: the Impact Challenge for the strongest teams, Access Fellowship seats for students who need funding.
What it costs a school
The cohort rates, stated plainly.
Schools pay the cohort rate, nothing else. A share of every fee funds a fully funded Access seat for a student nominated by an NGO.
- Billion Founders Impact Challenge
USD 90 regular entry or USD 60 early bird per builder.
- Access Fellowship
No cost to the student, ever. Seats are nominated by NGO partners and funded by paid seats.
Questions heads ask
Straight answers.
Does this need to sit inside a timetabled subject?
No. Most cohorts run as an after-school or enrichment block. Schools that timetable it usually attach it to business studies, computing or design.
Do our teachers need to know how to code?
No. The staff sponsor holds the room and the routine. Technical depth comes from the mentors and the session plans.
What if a team's project fails?
That is a normal outcome and we teach it as one. Students still finish with a documented build, a tested assumption and something to show.
Can we run it for a small group?
Fifteen is our floor. Below that the peer critique, the part that does most of the work, stops functioning.
Schools
Bring a cohort to your school.
Tell us your school, your year groups and roughly when you would want to start. We will send the sponsor pack and a call.
We use what you send here to reply to you and nothing else. Under-18s should have a parent, guardian or teacher send the enquiry with them.