Home/Indigenous Innovation Fellowship
In development · 12 weeks
Element Indigenous Innovation Fellowship

Build technology
for your community

A dedicated version of the Element Education program for Indigenous learners, currently in development. Twelve weeks of practical, job-ready skills in UX/UI design, AI, product development, entrepreneurship and no-code development, designed to be delivered on full tuition scholarship, and ending with a demo day where you present a product that answers a challenge your own community identified.

🎓 Tuition-free by design
🤖 AI literacy
🎨 UX/UI & product design
📱 App development
🚀 Entrepreneurship
🎓
Funding goal
Full Tuition Scholarship
$0
🤖
Weeks 1–2
AI Literacy
Included
🎨
Weeks 3–6
UX/UI & Product Design
Included
📱
Weeks 7–10
App Development
Included
🚀
Weeks 11–12
Entrepreneurship
Included
🌐
Week 12
Community Demo Day
Finale

What's included

The fellowship carries the full Element Education curriculum, removes the cost barrier, and adds mentorship and a demo day built around community-identified challenges.

🎓
Full tuition scholarships

The model is simple: no tuition, no payment plan, no debt. We are raising scholarship funding now, and we will not open a cohort until the seats in it are covered. You bring the commitment and the problem worth solving.

Funding in progress
🤖
AI literacy

Learn what AI tools actually do, where they help, where they mislead, and how to use them as leverage in real product work, not as a party trick.

🎨
UX/UI and product design

Research, wireframes, a full design system and a clickable prototype. The craft and the reasoning behind it, taught the way it's practiced in industry.

📱
App development

Turn the prototype into a working web or mobile application using no-code and AI-assisted development. No prior coding experience required.

🚀
Entrepreneurship

Positioning, pricing, launch and the business mechanics behind a product, whether you're pitching an employer or standing up your own venture.

🤝
Indigenous mentorship

We are building a mentor circle of Indigenous founders and technologists who have shipped their own products and who understand both the work and the context. If that describes you, we would like to talk.

🌐
Community demo day

The program closes with a demo day where fellows present products addressing challenges identified by their own communities, in front of peers, mentors and invited guests.

Five disciplines,
twelve weeks

The same practical, job-ready curriculum that runs in every Element Education cohort. Nothing is watered down for the fellowship. The difference is who it's for, who mentors it, and who the work is built for.

01
Track
AI Literacy
🤖 Foundation

Understand how modern AI tools work well enough to direct them. You'll use AI throughout the program as a research partner, a design accelerator and a build assistant, and you'll learn to tell the difference between a useful output and a confident wrong one.

Prompting AI-assisted research Tool selection Evaluating outputs
02
Track
UX/UI & Product Design
🎨 Craft

From user research and problem framing through to wireframes, a complete design system and a clickable prototype. You leave with the artifacts a hiring manager asks to see, and the ability to explain the decisions behind each one.

User research Figma Design systems Prototyping Design rationale
03
Track
App Development
📱 Build

Take the design and make it real. Front end, data, authentication and deployment, assembled with no-code platforms and AI-assisted development so the barrier is your idea, not your syntax.

No-code development Databases Auth Deployment Testing
04
Track
Entrepreneurship
🚀 Launch

What happens after the build. Validating demand, positioning, pricing, landing pages and launch. The practical business layer that turns a working app into something people can actually find and use.

Validation Positioning Pricing Go-to-market
05
Track
Community-Led Problem Framing
🌐 Fellowship

Unique to the fellowship. Your project starts from a challenge your own community identifies, and you carry that relationship through the full twelve weeks: research, design, build and demo day. The community defines the problem; you build the answer.

Community engagement Problem framing Mentorship Demo day pitch

How it runs

Four phases. Every week ends with something concrete: a document, a file, a working screen, a live product.

Weeks 1 – 2
Validate

Meet your community challenge, frame the problem, and pressure-test it into a product brief.

Weeks 3 – 6
Design

Research through to a design system and a clickable prototype people can react to.

Weeks 7 – 10
Build

Turn the prototype into a working web or mobile application with real data behind it.

Weeks 11 – 12
Launch

Ship it, position it, and present it at demo day to your community and the cohort.

Demo day

The fellowship doesn't end with a certificate. It ends with fellows standing up and presenting working products that address challenges identified by their own communities, in front of peers, mentors, and the people the work is for.

The brief doesn't come from a textbook or an instructor. It comes from the community, and the community sees what got built.

🎤
Present your product
A live walkthrough of what you built and why
🌐
Community-defined brief
The challenge came from your own community
🤝
Mentors in the room
Founders who've shipped their own products
📼
A recording you keep
Portfolio-ready proof of the work and the pitch

What you graduate with

Students graduate with a completed portfolio project, a working web or mobile application, and the skills needed to pursue careers in technology or launch their own ventures.

01
A completed portfolio project

Research, design system, prototype and rationale: the full body of work, documented and ready to show.

02
A working application

A live web or mobile product that real people can open and use. Not a mockup. Not a concept deck.

03
A path forward

The skills to pursue a career in technology or to keep building your own venture, plus a cohort and mentor circle that doesn't close on week 12.

Who it's for

The fellowship is open to Indigenous applicants. No design background, no coding background and no degree required. The program is built to take you from zero to shipped.

You're a good fit if

  • You identify as Indigenous
  • You have a challenge in your community you'd like to work on
  • You can commit to twelve weeks of consistent work
  • You're curious about design, AI and building products
  • You have a laptop and a reliable internet connection

You don't need

  • Any coding experience
  • A design or tech background
  • A university degree
  • A finished business idea
  • Money, since the fellowship is designed to be tuition-free
Where this stands today. The Element Indigenous Innovation Fellowship is in development and is not yet accepting fellows. It is being built by Element Education with Indigenous advisors, and it is not Indigenous-led yet. Making it so is the next piece of work, and we are looking for Indigenous directors, mentors and community partners to shape it before a single cohort runs. Funding for the scholarships is being raised now. We would rather tell you that plainly than promise a seat we cannot yet cover. Register your interest below, as a prospective fellow or as a partner, and we will be in touch as this takes shape.

Your community
already knows the problem

Twelve weeks to build the answer. Help us stand it up.

In development · No coding required · elementedu.io