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The world needs a generation of TRAINED innovators
WE HELP DEVELOP
Confidence
Curiosity
Careers
Creativity
Communication
Critical Thinking
Future Talent
Future Founders
Future Innovators
Unlocking the Teenage Economy
At Startup Sherpas, we create social value by unlocking the potential of the next generation. Through Paid Work Experience, Career Immersion Programmes, and Future Founder Training, we equip teenagers with the skills and confidence to thrive in the modern workplace while empowering them to make meaningful contributions to the economy.
Partnering with businesses, governments, and educators, we focus on driving social impact by developing young talent, nurturing future leaders, and building a more inclusive workforce.
Watch to see what our sherpees think!
Michele Williams
Global Head of Risk Consulting
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Allianz Commercial
To collaborate and learn with teenagers; to get their ideas on what is important for them in the future from an insurance product – as well as a working environment – is a fantastic opportunity.
David Horne
Managing Director
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LNER
I am really proud of LNER’s collaboration with Startup Sherpas. It’s fantastic that we’ve been able to gather insight from young people, representing Generation Z and Generation Alpha, as they will be our future customers and employees.
Nicholas Lyons
The Lord Mayor
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City of London
Startup Sherpas is an exciting social enterprise. I welcome their latest initiative to gain the insights and ideas of young people for the industry and to connect young people to the opportunities offered by leading UK companies.
Paul Welsh
Head of Innovation
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Aviva
Startup Sherpas are on a really important and valuable mission… I know myself, when I was growing up, it was difficult to understand what work was really like and to get that work experience that inspires you. I’m really proud to be able to support Startup Sherpas.
CASE STUDIES
Discover the impact we are creating with our partners across industries.
FROM IMPACT TO LEGACY FOR GOVERNMENTS
We help governmental organisations move from social impact at community scale to long-term population-level change. This is the road from impact to legacy.
Cities
Smart cities are cities filled with smart talent. Our city-wide programmes consist of talent accelerators for key clusters and young founder programmes to drive innovation for inclusive economic growth.
Councils
We partner with councils to convene business, educational and community leaders to accelerate and grow the impact we can create. We build for both immediate impact and population-level scale from the ground up.
Clusters
We provide exceptional young talent and young founders to make clusters thrive. We work with your local experts to develop the talent accelerator that will drive inclusive growth. Whether that’s about getting girls into Cyber, or getting teenagers to understand Photonics, we are the talent partner for your cluster.
Read our Future of Rail Report 2023
In collaboration with LNER, discover 1,000 ideas on how to futureproof the rail industry, with young people in mind.
INDUSTRIES WE FOCUS ON
GETTING THE YOUNGER GENERATION TO LOVE INSURANCE!
The insurance industry is one of our Superpower industries because it exposes teenagers to an understanding of risk.
We believe that understanding risk is critical if we want our young people to use the appropriate tools that we teach them to deliver meaningful change to their future – both in terms of their career, and the planet.
Insurance is also an exciting industry that is undervalued and overlooked as a viable career option for future talent.
As a result, we work and collaborate with a number of insurance industry leads to put young people at the forefront of their recruitment process, and values.
The future of cyber security lies with our future talent: our teens.
We have created the Cyber Talent Accelerator so that we can encourage and welcome teenagers into the cyber industry.
Teenagers can join our junior apprenticeship in cyber where they will actively work on ideas in cyberspace.
They start by exploring cyber bullying, and stopping identifying scams. Then, they can move onto designing their dream career in cyber, before working on a specialist project in an area they’re interested in.
Co-designing the future of travel with future customers in mind.
Mobility is critical to how today’s teenagers will live tomorrow.
Teenagers on our programmes have already tackled a wide variety of mobility challenges, designing the future of rail travel, and motor insurance policies in a world of self-driving cars.
Teenagers are creative and sophisticated innovators who experience first-hand the complex challenges mobility provides – often without the opportunity to help mould its future. We help change this by encouraging young people to lean into these economic challenges, envisioning how new technologies will impact the industry as a whole.
Engaging teenagers to create one million contributions to solving climate change.
That is our mission when it comes to making a positive, meaningful contribution to the climate crisis conversation. We do that by putting young people at the forefront, introducing teens to the green economy and all the career opportunities it presents.
After working with Leeds City Council to create its green jobs strategy, we created our very first talent accelerator. Named The Green Jobs Talent Accelerator, teenagers can take part in a junior apprenticeship to find their perfect place in the green economy.
Teenagers are the key to unlocking an inclusive economy - and that starts with understanding money.
We identified seven Superpower industries that will accelerate our teenagers when it comes to being able to shape the future we all want to live in. Unsurprisingly, finance was one of them.
Teenagers need to understand how money works, not just for themselves but for their future – and to help bring their solutions to life.
Our first banking project was asking 100 teenagers from Leeds City College: ‘How do banks become the guardians of our future world?’ When we took those teenagers to the Financial Times to present their ideas for solutions to the industry, the message was strong: teach us about finance.
Teenagers can be the change makers of today, as well as future shapers of tomorrow.
The water industry needs to change behaviours on a population-level scale, with the future of the planet in mind – specifically when it comes to getting people to use less water.
The industry itself also has a huge need for fresh, young talent as it further develops infrastructure for our changing world over the coming decades – especially with the climate in mind.
Through our ongoing collaboration with Northumbrian Water, it turns out that teenagers are really good at designing and suggesting behavioural change systems and gamified solutions.
Smart cities are cities filled with smart talent.
Smart cities are cities filled with smart talent, as well as smart technology. Teenagers are the future of ours cities and need to be at the forefront of transforming our urban environments into smart cities. As we navigate towards more sustainable, efficient, and interconnected urban spaces, the involvement of younger generations is crucial for every smart city.
