What Is YEEP? Inside Parul University’s India-Switzerland Entrepreneurship Exchange

Some of the most useful learning happens when students from different countries build something together under real pressure. Well, this is the flagship idea behind YEEP – Young Entrepreneur Exchange Program, an international initiative by Parul University, PIERC & CIRR. This guide truly explains how this program is well-crafted and programmed in a way to thrive entrepreneurship spirits amongst students!

YEEP is a two and half a week entrepreneurship exchange program, as delivered as an Indian Summer School (YEEP ISS), in exclusive partnership with Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. It brings Indo & Swiss students to learn entrepreneurship by mixing global teams, working structure via core tools, and taking an idea from a concept to a properly crafted business pitch. This is the main course of the program and it aims to thrive entrepreneurial spirit, thinking, and develop intercultural learning among students.

YEEP is deliberately sequenced so that theory always leads into action. The programme moves through clear phases:

• Orientation and culture: an inauguration and ice-breaking, followed by sessions on cross-cultural understanding  so mixed teams can work together well.
• Input Sessions: the core frameworks, design thinking, the Business Model Canvas, value proposition design, and pitching, taught by faculty from both universities.
• Fieldwork and validation: teams leave the classroom to conduct desk research, interview real people, and test their ideas in the Indian market.
• Business modelling: teams turn their research into a structured business model.
• Test pitch and final pitch: a practice pitch with jury feedback, then a final pitch competition on the last day.

YEEP 2026 hosted 11 international participants and 2 faculty members from Bern University of Applied Sciences, who joined Parul University students in mixed teams. They arrived on a campus that is itself deeply international, with students from more than 75 countries, making YEEP one strand of a much wider global ecosystem: across 2026, Parul University’s international programmes were set to bring 151 international participants across 11 programmes from 22 countries. The sessions were led by experts including Mr. Jay Sudani (CEO, PIERC), Dr. Preeti Nair (Director, CIRR), and Dr. Claudia Vogel and Mr. Aron Braun of Bern.

YEEP is graded on outcomes, not attendance. The final pitch is a live presentation to a jury, up to ten minutes to pitch followed by around ten minutes of questions, and it carries real weight: 35 per cent of the final grade for the Bern students and 20 per cent for the Indian students, with slides submitted the day before. After weeks of research and iteration, teams pitch the ventures they have built. In YEEP 2026, Team ZYNX, whose idea was an electrolyte-infused chewing gum for athletes, was declared the winner of the pitch competition.

For students, YEEP compresses a huge amount of learning, real entrepreneurship, real cross-cultural teamwork, and real market exposure, into a short, intense experience. For Parul University, it is a signature example of how it blends its PIERC startup ecosystem with its international ambitions. And for the wider goal of building globally capable founders, it is a template: learn the tools, cross a culture, test in a real market, and pitch what you build.