Privacy and Data: our promise to you
Treating you and your data with the respect it deserves
A very warm welcome to
Your Academy!
We created our academies—including The StartUp Tribe, the World Class Cities Academy, and our partner platforms—because we were sick of online initiatives that betray your trust.
Too many websites ask for your details only to spam your inbox, monetize your habits, or hit you with sneaky upsells. We built this space to be fundamentally different. We treat your personal information the exact same way we expect ours to be treated: with absolute respect, total privacy, and zero ulterior motives.
Operating across 29 countries, we don't believe in hiding behind 50 pages of confusing legal jargon. Whether you are joining us from South Africa, Europe, the United States, or anywhere else on Earth, here is our plain-language commitment to how we protect your data while complying with global privacy laws (including the EU/UK GDPR, South Africa’s POPIA & PAIA, and US state regulations).
We take a refreshingly honest approach to your data...
We treat it exactly the same way as we would treat our own: with total respect for your privacy.
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100% Commercial-Free Guarantee
No Ads: We do not host pop-ups, banner ads, or sponsored content.
No Fees or Subscriptions: Our learning platforms are free to access.
No Data Monetization: We never sell, rent, trade, or share your personal information with third parties, advertisers, or spammers. The only time we share the data is - for example - a city asks us run an academy for them. Each month we send them a report with the data to help them understand what is happening in the city. -
The Data We Collect (And What We Don't)
To set up your student account and deliver course certificates, we collect only three basic items:
First Name
Last Name
Email Address
Age
What we DO NOT collect: Financial or banking details, government identification numbers, physical home addresses, or cross-site tracking data. We HATE cookies just as much as you do so as far as we can control it we do not track what you do after you use the academies in the same way we would not want to be tracked ourselves. -
How Your Data Is Used
We use your name and email exclusively to:
Create and maintain your student account.
Save your learning progress across modules and courses.
Send essential platform updates, course notifications, or completion records. -
Infrastructure & Platform Security
Our academies run on Thinkific, an enterprise-grade global learning platform.
Thinkific handles technical infrastructure and data security using bank-grade encryption in transit and at rest.
For platform security certifications and technical safeguards, view the Thinkific Security Overview at www.thinkific.com/security-overview -
Universal Data Rights
Regardless of where you live or which academy platform you use, every learner receives the exact same standard of data control:
Right to Access & Records: You can request a summary of the personal information we hold about you at any time.
Right to Correction: You can update your name or email address directly within your student profile settings.
Right to Erasure ("To Be Forgotten"): You can close your account and request the permanent deletion of your data from our systems.
Right to Opt-Out: You can unsubscribe from non-essential communications at any time using the link at the bottom of our emails. -
Information Access & Legal Requests
Because our records are strictly limited to basic user registration (First Name, Last Name, and Email), fulfilling formal access requests under statutory frameworks (such as South Africa's PAIA, EU Subject Access Requests, or US Privacy Requests) requires zero complex application forms, manual processing fees, or legal red tape.
To request formal verification or extraction of your student record, submit an email to our Data Protection Officer listed below. Requests are verified and completed within standard statutory timelines at no charge.
Data Protection & Information Officer: York Zucchi. Email yz at yzp.ch