Manoela Bezerra

Academics for Companies is a junior enterprise. AFC’s mission is to foster student entrepreneurship and to let students develop their skills as a preparation for the professional world. We are currently active in Leuven, Gent and Brussels. Since its foundation in 2007, AFC has become a lively organisation offering an enormous variety of activities for students from different academic backgrounds. These activities are divided into three different phases in which students can acquire skills and apply their academic knowledge. ‘Explore’ is the first phase in our AFC-story and focuses on discovering what you want and what raises your interest. In doing so, we try to guide you in the development of your interests, which you can further evolve and exploit in the next phases. First of all, students with a passion for entrepreneurship can discover what happens in this innovative, creative and vibrant world. Throughout the year, we organise events that cover an elaborate variety of topics, to satisfy all students’ demands at the end of the academic year. Our ‘Learn’ phase aims to teach students important skills that their academic student programme does not deal with. Therefore, we organise interactive workshops, the so-called ‘Tracks’, in which students can improve their soft skills. Thanks to the wide range of topics, each motivated student can find a workshop he or she is interested in. By participating, they will learn to develop skills that are essential for a successful career. The last phase, called 'Apply'​ is especially for students looking to put their academic knowledge into practice through a hands-on business experience. As such, we offer the opportunity to participate in a Student Consulting project, or to get a taste of entrepreneurship by doing a short internship at a startup. In addition, we offer other stand-alone challenges in the course of the semester.