Shenkar is the first college in Israel to offer a business acceleration program for projects, ideas and start-ups. ACT Shenkar supports and assists enterprises that are in the initial stages of establishment, enabling students to make the significant leap into developing their initiatives and accessing external funding.

The unique acceleration program provides significant seed funding for the first breakthrough, engaging advanced methodologies from the start-up world. The participating projects receive personal mentoring from the program team, in addition to meetings with various entrepreneurs, consultants and industry experts. At the end of the program, participants embark on Shenkar's annual demo day, where they present their ventures to a community of investors and interested parties.

What do we offer?

• Initial funding
• Mentoring and feedback from a team of leading entrepreneurs and industry experts
• Tools and methodologies for creative-entrepreneurial thinking processes
• Information about grant opportunities
• Lectures, workshops and personal consultation on core issues: business models, IP protection, team building, preparation for meeting with investors, and more.
• The support of a multidisciplinary community of entrepreneurs, graduates and researchers who enrich one another.

The program is an ideal kick-starter for 3^rd-4^th year students with plans to propel their graduate project to the next step, as well as for graduates who already completed their studies. Additionally, a select number of places are allocated to external students outside of Shenkar, as well as Shenkar faculty and staff.

Previous graduates of the program have gone onto excelling in their field, developing their ideas and gaining international interest. The Knit Net Project of Emma Margarita Ernst, junior lecturer at Shenkar, focused on developing smart knitting needles that make the activity of knitting accessible to a wider audience, through the integration of a sensor in the needle that reads, remembers and repeats the knitting movements in real time.

Similarly, graduate of the Department of Industrial Design - Maya Cohen-Zuckerman, developed her project Snappy: an interactive toy for dogs who are left alone at home. The concept is based on a two-part design, including a smart electronic core that moves the toy, and a selection of external skins that offer different experiences and stimuli for dogs, creating fun and active play. The unique venture qualified for the 2016 Creative Business Cup, Israeli Competition Finals and attracted a great deal of attention among the International Jury.