An accelerator just for 9 women founders?

THIS ISSUE AT A GLANCE

• Something True → The Invest In Women Founders Accelerator: The Startup Ladies just opened applications for their 2026 Top 9 — a hyper-focused accelerator selecting just 9 women tech founders for intensive acceleration aimed at getting you funded. Applications close June 17.

• Something to Sign Up For → IBM Just Made AI Free for 20,000 Schools: IBM Bob is now free for students and educators at 20,000+ post-secondary institutions worldwide — and alongside it, IBM opened the AI Builders Challenge, a global competition where students build portfolio-ready AI projects across two monthly rounds (July and August).

• This Week's Resources → Discord entry-level engineering role ($160K–$180K base), Forward Deployed Engineer roles at OpenAI, Anthropic & Google ($350K–$785K total comp), a free Figma UI/UX course from freeCodeCamp, Formation's free system design interview workshop (register before June 18), Anthropic Academy's 13+ free AI courses with certificates, the Anthropic Fellows Program, and the Snowflake Startup Accelerator (equity-free, rolling applications).

Hey CreateHER’s,

Short but stacked this week. We've got a rare accelerator built for exactly nine women founders, and if you've been building toward something fundable, that deadline is Tuesday. We've also got free AI access courtesy of IBM for students, plus jobs with serious comp, free courses, and programs worth applying to. Let's get into it.

📣 Something True: The Invest In Women Founders Accelerator is Open

We love an accelerator that actually puts its money where its mouth is. The Startup Ladies just opened applications for their 2026 Top 9 Women Founders Accelerator, leading up to their annual Invest In Women Founders Summit.

If you are a woman founder building a tech or tech-enabled business, this program selects just 9 founders for intensive, focused acceleration aimed directly at getting you funded.

The timeline is tight on this one:

• Applications Close: June 17 at 11:59 p.m. ET

• Top 9 Notified: June 30

🌟 Something to Sign Up For: IBM Just Opened Free AI Access to 20,000 Schools, and You Can Build With It Too!

IBM launched something this week that we genuinely didn't expect to be this accessible.

IBM Bob — IBM's new AI-powered development partner — just became free for students and educators at 20,000 post-secondary institutions worldwide. And alongside that, IBM opened the AI Builders Challenge: a global competition where students build portfolio-ready AI projects using IBM Bob, with two monthly rounds launching July 1 and August 1.

If you're a student, a bootcamp grad, or someone building toward your first tech role — this is worth knowing about. IBM Bob can write code, explain errors, generate test cases, and help you build real projects you can actually show an employer. Free access. No waitlist.

The Challenge itself runs through August, with submissions due July 31 and August 31. It's designed to produce work you can put on your portfolio and talk about in interviews — which is exactly the kind of resource we want in your hands.

THIS WEEK’S RESOURCES

• Discord — Software Engineer, Database Infrastructure — Entry-level role on the database infrastructure powering 500M+ users. $160K–$180K base. San Francisco Bay Area. A rare entry-level role at this salary band — if you're job-ready, don't sleep on it. Apply →

• Design Professional Interfaces with Figma — freeCodeCamp — Free course covering the full Figma workflow: wireframes, style guides, Auto Layout, components, and high-fidelity prototypes. No design background required. For builders who are tired of skipping the design step. Enroll →

• Forward Deployed Engineer — OpenAI, Anthropic & Google are hiring — $350K–$785K total comp. FDEs embed inside enterprise clients to make AI work in production. It's engineering meets consulting meets AI implementation — and most people in tech still haven't heard of it. All three of the big labs are actively hiring right now. Learn more →

• Formation — System Design & Technical Interview Workshop —Formation has helped engineers land at Google, Meta, Amazon, and beyond. This session is a free or low-cost open workshop. Worth bookmarking if you're actively interviewing. Register before June 18th Join →

• Snowflake Startup Accelerator — Equity-free program for startups building on Snowflake's AI Data Cloud. Includes dedicated partner engineers, co-marketing, Snowflake credits, and VC Demo Days with Snowflake Ventures, Redpoint, and Altimeter. Small cohort, rolling applications. Apply →

• Anthropic Academy — 13+ Free AI Courses with Certificates — Free, no credit card required. Tracks cover Claude API development, MCP, Agentic AI, Claude Code, AI Fluency for non-developers, and enterprise deployment on AWS Bedrock and Google Vertex AI. Enroll →

• Anthropic Fellows Program — Funding and direct Anthropic mentorship for engineers and researchers working on high-priority AI safety questions. One of the only programs where your work lands directly inside one of the leading AI labs. Rolling applications. Apply →

Until next week,

Discover \ Design \ Deliver