Summer Fellowship

The Tsai CITY Summer Fellowship is a multi-week, full-time accelerator to incubate new companies, nonprofits, and initiatives. Building on ideas within a supportive environment, teams can go from sketch to launch by summer’s end. The fellowship includes $20,000 for each team, along with a rigorous sequence of workshops, sprints, mentorship, coaching, and pitch opportunities.

Group cheers at demo day event

Who should apply?: 

The Fellowship welcomes all current Yale undergraduate and graduate students pursuing degrees. We encourage applications from students with ventures or non-profits showing any level of traction. All are welcome. If you want to learn more about what traction we look for in Summer Fellowship teams, here is the rubric that we will be using to guide our decision-making process. For examples of past Summer Fellowship teams, you can see last year’s Summer Fellowship cohort here. Please click here for a Google Doc version of the Summer Fellowship Application.

To participate in the Summer Fellowship, you should meet the following criteria:  

  • You have created a sustainable model for your venture or non-profit, and you:
    • Have developed and executed a functional pilot.
    • Have active/paying customers or users.
    • Have filed for a patent, trademark, or copyrighted work.
  • You have an active digital presence (a website).
  • Your organization is established as a legal entity.
  • The team participating in the Summer Fellowship includes at least one of the founding members of the organization
  • Your team possesses critical skills and knowledge (if you are a tech or tech-enabled product/service, you have a technical co-founder).
  • You can complete attendance throughout its duration.
  • Can attend every session throughout the entire program. The Summer Fellowship is a full-time hybrid program. The bulk of the programming occurs during the month of June and with more 1:1 support during July & August.

Program schedule:

  • In-Person Phase: June 2nd - June 27th at Tsai CITY
  • Virtual Phase: June 28th - August 1st
    • Note: Each team is expected to work on their venture 40 hours per week during the virtual phase
  • Preview the tentative schedule here

What teams receive:

The Summer Fellowship program brings together a unique array of resources for innovators and entrepreneurs:

  • $20,000 in grant funding
  • A two-night overnight retreat in Boston
  • A board of mentors to help you achieve your goals
  • 10+ expert led workshops
  • Full 24/7 access to the Tsai CITY building during program
  • A custom-produced 30-second video to use for your own marketing purposes
  • Invitation to pitch at Demo Day 2025
  • Dedicated Venture Advisor for weekly mentoring

     

Throughout the summer, our highly skilled CITY team will work closely with you to offer tailored support — and we’ll be on hand throughout the program to provide advice, feedback, ideas, and more.

*The application process will begin late January 2025. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for more updates about this and other programs/events happening at Tsai CITY.