Wayra, Telefónica’s global start-up accelerator, today announced it is partnering with Enternships to give 130 young people paid internships in its Wayra Academies.
The partnership, a first of its kind, has been created to give young people the chance to work in Wayra Academies in London, Munich, Dublin, Madrid, Barcelona or Prague. Opportunities will range from working in operations or joining the team of a Wayra supported start-up. Interns will also have opportunities with Wayra alumni whose growing enterprises are fostering the next generation of talented young people.
The initiative was celebrated at the partnership launch event at the London Wayra Academy, where it was unveiled to 200 people, ranging from industry leaders, through serially successful entrepreneurs, to heads of student enterprise societies.
Simon Devonshire, Director of Wayra Europe said: “We are witnessing the birth of a new economy – the digital economy – which I believe is more significant than the birth of the industrial revolution. The partnership with Wayra and Enternships provides students with a real opportunity to get personally involved in this revolution and gain invaluable experience in working with the pioneers of this new age.”
The announcement follows Telefónica’s recent commitment to help develop entrepreneurship among young people across Europe. Within its 2015 targets, Telefónica pledged to build a Telefónica Think Big community of more than 300,000 young people working to build a more entrepreneurial Europe. It also committed to enrolling 50,000 students in Think Big School, teaching digital literacy such as coding and robotics, and to transition 5,000 young people and graduates from education into the workplace via its Talentum programme.
Devonshire continued: “There is always an incredible learning opportunity in working with any start-up, however, the Wayra start-ups are even more special because they are inherently digital. Wayra’s recent global call for entrepreneurs received 3,444 applications from teams wanting to join us and benefit from the acceleration Wayra provides. By virtue of this incredible volume of applications, the successful ones really are the best of the best – the partnership with Enternships creates an opportunity for students to work directly with them.”
Rajeeb Dey, CEO and Founder of Enternships, added: “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Wayra. Giving young people the opportunity to spend time in an entrepreneurial environment provides them with different experience than they would get in a corporate setting. By creating a portal that encourages young companies to connect with the great pool of untapped graduate talent, Wayra can make sure that their companies have access to exactly the talent they need and deserve. These companies can offer their interns everything they need to kick-start a blazing career and together we can inspire more young people to look at entrepreneurship and working in start-ups as viable and rewarding career paths.”
Those wishing to apply for roles should visit wayra.enternships.com