Volunteer

Why you should volunteer at Sampo Accelerator

This is a great opportunity to learn about one of Europe's leading startup ecosystems, from the inside. As well as learning about *all* the possible options available to you.

You will get to know and work alongside many different early-stage companies from different countries and industries.

This is the best way to build and expand your network. 

We are expecting you to put your skills to work in a safe environment - doing, trying and learning is not only valued, but encouraged. We know that some things will not work as expected, so we give you the space to experiment.

It's also a great opportunity for you to test a little bit of everything to figure out what you might try next in life.

   

Your Profile

• High in the 3 I's - integrity, intelligence, initiative

 

• Interested on startups or to become a founder (but do not yet have a team or idea)

• Can communicate in English (this is an international environment)

• Able and willing to do the non-glamorous jobs without complaint (running an accelerator requires a lot of footwork, emails, and scheduling)

Useful but not needed:

• Studied Entrepreneurship (at least 1 course), for example via school/university or programs such as YC Startup School

• Finnish language skills, because we are based in Espoo, Finland (but it is up to you where you do the tasks!)

• Other Central or Eastern European language skills because this is a significant part of our target group of founders

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What is not important

gender, age, nationality, education, work experience...

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Our Expectations 

The person selected will be with Sampo Accelerator for between 6 months and 2 years. By this time the learning will have slowed too much, and a better career option will have opened up (join a scale up, found a startup, join a corporate etc).

You can commitment to anything from 5 hours per week to full time

Possible Tasks (any or all of theses are possible, or you can find your own),

• helping improve our programmes (and/or run some batches)

• building and strengthening our network

• Social Media content creation (blog posts, videos, Linkedin etc)

• help us define and improve our processes (document, automate, update, create etc)

• attend startup conferences

• work with and help build our community (alumni, coaches, ecosystem...)

• learning and teaching skills that you have learnt

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What we can offer;

• A true hybrid work environment

• Infinite learning possibilities

• A working product (4+ years of activities & learning)

• Access and interaction with our coaches, alumni and network

• Being exposed to and learning from top tech entrepreneurs who are working on innovative ideas

• Better understanding of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Finland and Europe

• Personal mentoring or coaching

• Other Travelling Salesman Ry perks

  • maintenance of (and access to) JEF-19, the trusty association Land-Rover defender

  • Maintenance of (and access to) the PaloSauna (https://palosauna.net)

  • road trips, in Jef, with or without the PaloSauna