Deadline: 12-Jun-23
EIT Food is inviting applications for the Empowering Women in Agrifood Programme which is designed for women regardless of their age, family situation, experience in business.
After this period, they will have the required knowledge, confidence and support to meet and exceed their aspirations, leading them to successfully start and develop sustainable businesses. They just need your idea and willingness to revolutionize the food system together with us!
The objective of Empowering Women in Agrifood Programme (‘EWA Programme’) is to boost enterprise development in RIS countries targeted at emerging female entrepreneurs. The EWA Programme aims to provide women entrepreneurs (10 by country every year) across RIS countries with the required knowledge, confidence, support and networking opportunities to successfully start and develop sustainable businesses.
The EWA Programme will run for a period of 5 to 6 months supporting early-stage female startups in the agrifood field and it will assist women entrepreneurs to grow and develop their businesses with a tailored, focused approach that specifically considers the concrete challenges, which female entrepreneurs face generally as well as the barriers that can limit their entrepreneurial activity due to other discriminating factors.
EIT Food’s objective is to “future proof” the food system, which includes building an inclusive and innovative community to “foster innovation at all stages of business creation”. Part of EIT Food’s inclusivity goals include supporting female entrepreneurs through education, network building, and dedicated programme resources- that is EWA- Empowering Women in Agrifood mission.
Programme
- Online training
- Selected entrepreneurs will benefit from 6 months long tailor-made training on specific business and entrepreneurial topics and access to resources to improve their skills.
- Mentorship/ Ongoing Support
- More than 20 hours of personalised mentoring, from experts in business, agrifood and successful entrepreneurs. EIT Food Startup Guide will be offered free of charge.
- Power of community
- Participation in entrepreneurship and networking events with high-level stakeholders. All applicants will have access to their EWA Community and will benefit from a network which provides direct access to over 500 mentors and female entrepreneurs within the agrifood ecosystem.
- Funding opportunities
- Beneficiaries will have the chance to win up to 10,000 euros per country, discover other EIT Food programmes and access investors, and corporates to take their businesses to the next level.
Benefits
- You will receive €1,000 stipend to help assume the costs of this travel.
- The program is done online, with sessions every 1-2 weeks, with a duration of 2-3 hours depending on the training.
EWA Programme’s Activities
- The programme is organized around the following steps:
- Open application for EWA programme’s participants;
- Evaluation and selection of applicants;
- Matchmaking activity – with an aim of creating mentoring pairs (Mentee & Mentor);
- Mentoring and training process including Masterclass activity;
- Pitching day (final event at local level);
- Women in Agrifood Summit – final international event summarizing whole EWA programme.
Eligibility Criteria
- To be a female entrepreneur with passion for the agrifood sector and a business idea.
- Country: based in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey.
- (In the case of a business registered) To have founded the company no longer than 2 years ago.
- To have received less than EUR 30,000 in public and private financing.
- To be committed to participate in the program and participate in its events.
For more information, visit Empowering Women in Agrifood.