We rely on a global community of volunteer mentors to support our work.
Our mentors teach and coach remotely over video chat, or can even visit Palestine in person for multi-week learning engagements.
GSG Mentorship Network
One of the biggest obstacles the Palestinian tech community faces is isolation. The fiber internet is great and electricity shortages can be overcome with batteries, but decades of movement restrictions and the political situation have limited Palestinian professional opportunities— especially for Gazans. In fact, most Gazans today have never been more than 30 miles away from where they were born.
That’s where you come in. Through virtual and in-person mentorship, we seek to expose aspiring tech professionals to global best practices in software development and entrepreneurship. We seek developers, startup founders, designers, professional skills coaches, angel investors and more to join GSG’s volunteer mentor network. What distinguishes our mentors is their love of the tech sector, their curiosity about emerging markets, and their passion to combine these to create new possibilities in places like Palestine.
In return, you have the opportunity to meaningfully grow one of the most inspiring but most inaccessible tech ecosystems in the world. You will have the chance to develop professional contacts and friendships with like-minded peers in Palestine and internationally.
What Skills Are We Looking For?
Our services to founders span startup nuts and bolts, ideation, all the way through pre-seed acceleration for startups with traction and investor introductions. Startups we work with span multiple sectors, but are typically product-based scalable startups targeting larger market opportunities across MENA or globally. As a mentor, you would have comfort presenting or advising on topics like:
Product Management
Customer Development & User Feedback
Two-sided marketplaces
Startup Team Management
Pitching
Bootstrappy marketing techniques
UX/UI
ECommerce
We are looking for passionate teachers and experienced engineers who are eager to share some of their technical knowledge with people just starting on their coding journey, as well as mentor more seasoned graduates of our programs in more specialized topics. Our core program is a six-months-long Javascript-based web development bootcamp. We teach node.js with SQL on the back-end and React on the front-end, and we also provide an introduction to React Native later in the course. We are interested in hearing from any developer or engineer who is passionate about a subject and wants to teach others! As a mentor, you could do code reviews remotely or visit Palestine in person to teach subjects like:
React Native
DevOps
Interview Prep for Remote Engineering Jobs
Project Management
AWS
Clean Code Best Practices
Engineering Team Management
HTML/CSS Basics
Technologies are teachable, but “soft skills” like communication, empathy, management, or teamwork are usually honed through experience and doing. In Palestine, young people have historically had fewer opportunities to practice these critical skills relative to peers in other regions—internships are hard to come by, management techniques in companies are outdated, and group work in school settings is unheard of. We are always looking for mentors and coaches who can help strengthen our community members’ confidence in areas like:
Client Relationship Management
Spoken and Written Communication
Negotiations
Empathy
Self-Learning and Researching
Mindfulness
Leading for the first time
Teamwork
Our community of mentors spans the globe. Watch this short video to learn more about how your skills can make a life-changing impact.
Common Questions
If you need more information, please fill out an application and highlight your question there, or you can contact us directly anytime!
What type of person makes a good GSG mentor?
We want people who are kind, humble, and enjoy teaching.
More uniquely, however, we want mentors who are flexible. Gaza and the West Bank can be unpredictable. Teams may have to reschedule a mentorship call at the last minute because of power outages. If you are visiting Gaza, we may not get updates on your entry permit until a few days or even hours before your scheduled arrival. It usually all turns out well, but we need people who can go with the flow and even enjoy a bit of unpredictability.
How does the mentor application process work?
Applications are reviewed (and re-reviewed) on a rolling basis and prospective mentors will be contacted based on the needs of our programming. All mentors seeking to visit us in-person must have a phone interview with our team.
Please note that we are not able to respond to every mentor application we receive. If your skills are an immediate match for our program’s needs, we’ll be in touch as soon as possible. But we may also reach out to you in the future for specific advice, mentorship, and support as new needs emerge that match with your skill sets and availability.
