SABIT Program: IT Startups – Call For Applications

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Special American Business Internship Training (SABIT) program has established a program to train up to 18 professionals from the Eurasian IT Startups sector. SABIT provides trainees the opportunity to become familiar with a U.S. industry sector and its regulations, establish valuable business relationships, learn about innovative technologies, equipment, and services, and come to understand market-based business concepts.

This program is designed for executives in IT startup companies. Candidates who apply to participate in the training program should be in a position of significant responsibility and have at least 3 years of management experience. Preference is given to applicants with technical training and relevant work experience in startups and IT, who currently hold a leadership position in their company or organization. Program participants with this level of experience will be in a position to obtain the most benefit from participating in the training program. The program will be interpreted from English into Russian by professional, simultaneous interpreters. Therefore, participants must be fluent in Russian or English.

This program is designed for professionals with executive responsibilities in an IT startup or similar role. We are inviting incubators, accelerators, and techno parks – in addition to IT startups to participate.

The following criteria applies to start-up:

  • From 3 to 50 employees;
  • Less than 4-5 years old;
  • Have an original IT product/service (intellectual property, and more than a demo) that has attracted interest from investors, if not necessarily investment;
  • Have at least a few clients/customers, and some revenue, although this revenue stream need not be huge;
  • Keenly interested in improving the business sides of their operations and learning about the innovation “ecosystem” in the United States;

The program is opened for participants from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

Knowledge of English language is not required to participate in this program.

The program dates are June 12 – 30, 2018.

The deadline for submitting applications is March 30.

SABIT covers expenses related to travel from Kyiv, Moscow or Istanbul to Washington and back,  accommodation, medical insurance and  provides small stipendium. Successful candidates should cover visa fee, travel expenses from their hometown to Kyiv/Moscow/Istanbul and back home as well as meal expenses.

To apply for this program, a participant should fill in application form, prepare letter of recommendation, copy  of the first page (bio page) of international passport and send all three documents in one pdf. file  to the following e-mail address: Nataliia.shknyeyeva@trade.gov and Sabit@trade.gov before the program deadline.

Application form for this training is attached and also available at the SABIT web-page: http://www.sabitprogram.org/index.php?option=calendar&Itemid=73

SABIT alumni are not eligible to participate in a SABIT program more than once.