Come and join us at the Skills for the Future Academy to share your knowledge about your industry and help a student launch their career!
Do you enjoy meeting, mentoring as well as learning from ambitious, creative and passionate young people?
Then this is for you!
The recruitment of our professional mentors is NOW OPEN!
The Skills for the Future Academy, in partnership with Chanakya University, is an exclusive, immersive real-world learning programme taking place 12-13 and 19-20 December 2026 in Bangalore. The Academy is designed to helps students gain clarity and confidence in their unique talents while guiding their school subject choices and building work-ready skills. Our teenagers are increasingly under pressure to top their grades and expand their portfolio to boost their candidature for university and early careers.
The Academy will help them make space for what truly matters to them: meaningfully connect to their talents and the real world, develop into capable contributors and commit to pathways as unique as they are and to ambitious goals. Find out more here.
Our Mentors play a key role in the Academy! On the last day we hand over the mic to the mentors to share and pitch their unique journey for students to select their mentor of choice.
We can’t wait to welcome you to the Academy and help you give back to the local youth in Bangalore.
Through the Academy, you will have the chance to:
Help a group of 14-16 year olds make space to find their own talents and unique aspirations for life after school.
Develop your mentoring craft through hands-on Strength-based Mentor training and practice.
Refresh your own professional network in Bangalore.
WE ARE HERE TO SUPPORT YOU
To thank you and help you prepare for the Academy’s unique mentoring experience, we offer a three-sessions online training on the practice of Strength-based Mentoring.
19 October - 30 November: Three online training sessions, one hour each
11 December: Mentors' welcome, in person
20 December: Mentoring day, at Chanakya University.
Fill in the form below to express your interest to volunteer up 3 hours of your time as a mentor.
A bit about us
IKiGAi DATA is a careers insights, education and training company.
Working with a creative and interdisciplinary team of experts and associates, we offer a graded Ikigai curriculum as well as end-to-end employability programmes for students in primary, secondary and post-secondary education. For teachers and mentors, we craft bespoke training programmes and provide advisory services on career education and Ikigai curriculum alignment.
Our research and data science team has developed an occupational model that underpins our labour market insights as well as a proprietary Ikigai mapping student-facing app.
What makes the Skills for the Future Academy different from other programmes
Fronted with peers and experts, not generalists, the learning is participatory, collaborative and action-biased and the content is grounded not in generic frameworks, but the real-life world.
Unlike traditional offerings, the ethos of the Skills for the Future Academy is one firmly grounded in the belief that a greater sense of worth and purpose can build learners’ confidence and opportunities around their unique strengths and ambitions. With this, learners meaningfully connect to the real world and develop into capable contributors.
Through our three flagship experiences, Bangalore students develop greater clarity and confidence in their motivating passions, strengths and their Career North Star. Then they learn how to pitch them to potential employers.
"Discovering Me" (Who am I, what are my driving motivations and my talents?)
"Exploring Possibilities" (What's out there, what's changing, what resonates?)
"My Path Forward" (What is my Career North Star and what should I say yes to today, to make it happen?)
Fill in the form and we’ll be in touch with joining instructions and training details!
From our Founder
I founded IKiGAi DATA on the belief that pursuing fulfilment at work and managing a healthy career is everyone’s right and responsibility. But it can feel like a privilege. As a technology consultant and investor-turned-founder, I experienced quite the 21st Century, squiggly career journey myself.
It took me time to find true alignment in my work with my values, my passions and my unique strengths. This did not happen by chance. It was the result of an intentional process of looking inwards as well as outwards into what drives me, what brings me joy, my unique talents and what the world needs.
It turns out, my Ikigai is helping others find theirs! The Bangalore Skills for the Future Academy is an important milestone in our journey at IKiGAi DATA, building on earlier successes with institutions like the University of North Carolina, the London School of Economics and many schools in the UK. This is our the response to the gap that we see in what is out there for young people today: a welcoming space and a guided journey through challenges, discoveries and deeply reflective moments, to prepare authentically for the world of work, grounded in a community of high trust and connected to the real-world. With this, we believe, young people can develop into the capable contributors and inspired change-makers that we most hope for them, with every inch of our being!
Come and share, or find, your Ikigai alongside them!
From Gaia Ines Fassò, our Founder and CEO