Inside five days at a Youth Innovation Program

Five days is not long. It is long enough, though, for a team of high school students who have just met to agree on a problem, understand it properly, and stand up in front of a room to explain what they would do about it.

Here is what goes into that week.

It fits around school

Programs run during school breaks: five days in January, five in April, and an extended ten-day program in the summer. Workshops between them keep students building through the year. No program runs during school hours.

It starts with the problem

Before anyone opens a laptop, teams learn design thinking. They write their problem as a single sentence, who needs what, because why, and test it with the 5 Whys until they reach the cause underneath.

Everyone picks a track

Each student focuses on one of three tracks, so every team has the skills a real venture needs:

• Prompt engineering: read, edit, and debug. Students learn to direct AI tools and turn a rough brief into something a team can actually build.
• PR & design: brand, audience, and outreach. Giving the idea a voice, a look, and a way to reach the people it is for.
• Business development: users, markets, and strategy. Finding who needs it, what it is worth, and how it could keep going.

AI runs through all three. Our programs are about shaping AI-driven social innovation: using new tools in service of real community needs.

Real people in the room

Programs run in partnership with organizations from Palestine's innovation ecosystem, in spaces like Makani Innovation Hub, with mentors and professionals who give teams honest feedback as they build.

Thirty seconds to make it count

Near the end of the week, teams work on their elevator pitch: the whole initiative in 30 seconds. It forces every team to decide what really matters about their idea. On demo day, every team presents what it built.

Who it is for

The program is for students in grades 9 to 12. Over the past year, more than 250 students applied, and 40 were accepted into a full scholarship-based program.

Applications for the January 2027 program are open. Apply now, or read our page for parents.