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Join the Gaza Sky Geeks Mentorship Network

Are you looking for a new challenge?

Make an impact by becoming a GSG volunteer. Through a wide range of skills, knowledge, and expertise our international network of mentors, trainers, and experts strives to nurture rising talent within the Palestinian tech and startup ecosystem.

About the GSG Mentorship Network

The emerging Palestinian tech and startup ecosystem presents a fascinating alternative to the traditional ecosystems found across the world. With a large pool of bright and motivated talent, the biggest obstacle is isolation. Circulation of knowledge is limited and international best practices in technology and leadership are hard to access, leaving little room for career advancement, job opportunities – or even internships.

This is where you can make a difference. Through virtual and in-person mentorship, Gaza Sky Geeks aims to expose aspiring tech professionals to global best practices in software development and entrepreneurship. We are continuously on the lookout for developers, startup founders, designers, professional skills coaches, angel investors and other experts to join the GSG Mentorship Network.

What makes our mentors unique is their love of the tech sector, curiosity of emerging markets and passion for creating new opportunities. Palestine being one of the least accessible tech ecosystems in the world provides a unique challenge for budding and experienced mentors to do meaningful work and develop professional contacts and friendships with like-minded peers in Palestine and internationally.

With an ever-present demand for mentors, our network is a bespoke initiative, continuously reviewing applications and matching skilled mentors with promising mentees. If you are interested in joining the Gaza Sky Geeks network of international mentors submit your application now!

What are people saying about  Gaza Sky Geeks?

“Entrepreneurs are by nature challengers of the status quo, with the current very difficult situation in Gaza, we need as many entrepreneurs and innovators as possible to find creative solutions to better the lives of people, Gaza Sky Geeks is the place where nurturing and enabling entrepreneurs happens. They deserve all the support”

Fadi GhandourManaging Partner at Wamda Capital

“Four years ago, we made an investment in Gaza Sky Geeks to support the growth of Palestine's tech sector. Since launching the country's first code academy in 2017, they have trained hundreds of world-class software developers and provided them infrastructure to reliably work with employers around the world ranging from Google to high-growth scale ups.”

Brad FeldCo-founder of Techstars

How can you get involved?

We are constantly looking for enthusiastic and passionate individuals who are interested in joining our network of mentors and coaches. We accommodate both online mentoring as well as in-person trainings. Our arrangements are flexible and mentors and coaches have the freedom to organize trainings in any format they find suitable. We typically recommend variations of the following four formats, but encourage potential candidates to consider the nature of these. For example, having strong presentations skills helps a lot if offering to give workshops, or being comfortable interacting with large numbers of people and giving critical feedback if considering bootcamps.

Workshop

Group sessions typically executed in the format of a lecture followed by a Q/A session. The aim is to increase knowledge and grow skills in a specific area through a combination of theory and practice.

Bootcamp

A multi-day series of workshops with more hands-on “learning-by-doing,” combining practice with theoretical knowledge to grow or learn new skills. This format is typically used for teaching coding or hard skills, but can also be used for other topics.

Individual Sessions

Individual feedback and discussion sessions with startups within the GSG network – typically executed in a 1:1 format. These can be used for batting ideas around, seeking specific advice or using you as a sounding board. The sessions tend to be one-off and on specific needs of startups. The same mentor may advise several mentees or teams.

Dedicated Mentor

Mentorship in the most traditional sense: individual recurring sessions with any member of the GSG community over an extended period of time, with the goal of coaching, role modeling, and teaching professional and personal development.

What skills are we looking for?

Working with the four key areas of knowledge below, we are continuously looking for mentors with a background in tech and startups, who will be able to comfortably advise mentees on a wide spectrum of topics.

Startups

Coding

Leadership

Deep Tech

Startups

We are looking for ardent founders and skilled professionals who are eager to share their knowledge and experience with startups within the GSG community. Spanning multiple sectors the startups are typically product-based and scalable, targeting larger mass marketing opportunities across the globe – and the MENA region in particular. Supporting all phases of founding a startup ranging from ideation to pre-seed acceleration to gaining traction and investor interest, mentors may help grow concrete skills in:

Pitching

Bootstrapping

Marketing & Sales

eCommerce

Product Management

UI/UX Design

Coding

We are looking for passionate teachers and experienced engineers who are eager to share their technical knowledge and experience with people at the beginning of their coding journey as well as GSG program graduates looking to gain knowledge of more specialized topics. Program graduates have undergone a six-month Javascript-based, web development bootcamp in addition to learning node.js, SQL, and React and React Native. To support this, mentors may help by remotely reviewing code or visiting Palestine in-person teaching subjects like:

Project Management

“Clean Code” Best Practices

Interview Prep for Remote Tech Jobs

HTML/CSS Basics

React Native

DevOps

Leadership

We are looking for enthusiastic mentors and accomplished coaches who are eager to help the GSG community members strengthen “soft skills” like communication, empathy, management, and teamwork. Usually these skills are honed through experience and doing rather than through teaching, but in Palestine however, opportunities to practice are hard to come by. Internships are rare, management techniques are outdated and group work in schools is unheard of. In response to this mentors may help strengthen the confidence of community members in areas like:

Spoken&Written Communication

Negotiations

Self-Learning & Research

First Time Leadership

Teamwork

Relationship Management

Deep Tech

We are looking for experts in deep tech who are eager to help GSG in our mission to build and grow a solid, technical community in Palestine. With a sturdy portfolio of traditional and popular technologies, the ecosystem is constantly looking for new opportunities and ways to stay relevant. This includes stepping into the future of tech by expanding the existing techstack with relevant deep tech advancements and applications. Mentors can help make this a reality by supporting and educating the GSG community with knowledge of deep tech topics like:

Project Management

Artificial Intelligence

Machine Learning

Augmented Reality

Computer Vision

Data Science