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Inside the AI Startup School #1

Posted 31 March 2025
Pauline Commereuc
By Pauline Commereuc
Platform Associate, Paris

1. How 40 technical founders took their first leap

What happens when you give ambitious builders five weeks, six evenings of meaningful discussions with top founders, and a 48-hour sprint to start building AI companies?

The AI Startup School was our way to find out.

From February to March this year the Paris team brought together 40 of Europe’s brightest technical minds and tried to create a space not for theory, but for action. A place where technical talent could go from thinking about starting to actually starting.

The outcome: 9 teams formed, 15 projects built – many of which are now continuing beyond the program, with or without EF.

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2. Who we heard from

The lineup was stacked with some of the most exciting voices in European AI.

Each Monday night focused on one thing: practical, candid advice from real founders. These weren’t keynotes. They were intimate, off-the-record conversations, the kind you can only have in a room full of builders.

Founders didn’t hold back. They shared failures and the uncomfortable tradeoffs that never make it into blog posts. Over drinks and casual chats the participants got the chance to go deeper, asking the unfiltered questions, and getting real-time feedback.

3. The Builders Weekend

At the end of the AI Startup School, all 40 participants came together for a 48-hour sprint: ideating, forming teams, prototyping, and pitching. 

Some participants worked solo, some formed teams – and some ideas emerged spontaneously that weekend. But all of them took a meaningful step forward.

Here’s some of the projects that were achieved:

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  • A 3D robot viewer to visualize and simulate robotic designs.
  • 24/7 on-demand tutoring that connects you with expert guidance via video chat, personalized exercises, and real-time feedback.
  • An Open-source platform for designing and simulating semiconductor architectures that don’t require gallium, or other restricted materials.
  • A sound generation tool for music producers, enabling faster creative workflows.
  • Blahbud, an AI-powered matching app.
  • A job application assistant that writes tailored cover letters, suggests improvements, and automates outreach.
  • An AI agent to train French medical students for the new ECOS exam format, focused on patient reasoning.
  • RooftopPVInitiative, a project-in-progress focused on optimizing rooftop solar panel usage.
  • Tab Organizer, a Chrome extension to declutter digital workspaces by clustering tabs by topic.

4. Final remarks

AI Startup School was born from a simple belief: Europe has the talent – what’s missing is the catalyst.

Too many brilliant engineers and researchers are sitting on big ideas but missing the community, context, or courage to take the first step. We designed the AI Startup School to change that – with real founder stories, practical advice, and a cohort of peers to learn and build with.

With the support of OpenAI and Galion.exe, we built a hands-on, high-energy program tailored for technical builders at the edge of conviction.

Some projects built over the weekend will pivot. Some will vanish. Others are already continuing, with or without EF, fueled by conviction and clarity. And that’s exactly the point: starting is the spark.

If you’re reading this wondering whether you could take that leap too, here’s your sign.

Let’s build together.

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