Deadline: 16-Jan-22
Applications are now open for the Standard Chartered Women in Technology Incubator Program to support female-led businesses by empowering them with business skills and digital technology solutions.
The Standard Chartered Women in Technology Incubator, is Africa’s leading incubator programme for female-led and founded businesses. It aligns with calls for more diversity in technology, entrepreneurship and for more opportunities for women to develop entrepreneurial and leadership excellence. This speaks to the bank’s Sustainability and Community Engagement strategy and focuses on supporting innovation, infrastructure and technology.
This programme is an initiative of Standard Chartered Bank Zambia in partnership with BongoHive, following the successful implementation of the Women in Tech programme in Kenya, Nigeria and Bahrain to mention a few.
The key objective of the incubator programme is to help Zambian women entrepreneurs or business owners who want to or are using digital technology to grow their business but lack the necessary support. The programme is designed to provide targeted support in areas of business operations, digitisation and digital transformation, accounting and financial management. The outcome of the programme is to support female-led entrepreneurial teams with training, mentorship and seed funding.
Successful applicants will begin their journey with a 3-month incubation programme followed by a 6-month acceleration programme for selected participants from the incubation programme.
Benefits
- 3 months learning experience on business operations;
- Personalised mentorship for all participants and their business needs;
- Access to legal, accounting, financial planning and tech support;
- Access to networking opportunities with fellow successful applicants and industry experts;
- $10,000 equity grant seed funding for the top five finalists from the incubation programme to assist with implementation of tech in their businesses;
- 6 months ongoing support from Standard Chartered; BongoHive and a network of coaches and mentors to assist with go-to-market strategies and scaling-up for the top five finalists; and
- Opportunity to join BongoHive’s supportive Alumni Network.
Duration
- The incubation period is 12 weeks for the 10 successful applicants
- This will be followed by an acceleration phase providing 6 months of ongoing support to the Top 5 winners of the incubation period
What specialized skills will I learn during the programme?
- Prototyping and MVP Development
- Investor Preparedness and Deal Structuring
- Product Design
- Customer Discovery and Validation
- Business Modelling
- Brand Development
- Financial Modelling and Management
- Sales and Marketing
- Intellectual Property, Legal Processes and Structures
Eligibility Criteria
- The business owner must be a female founder or co-founder over 18 years of age;
- The business must be founded or co-founded by a woman with an equal or majority stake;
- The business must be based and operating in Lusaka, Zambia and aligned with the needs of Zambians;
- The business must already have a technology-based or enabled business or a clear need to leverage technology to enable the business to grow;
- The business owner must be of Zambian nationality;
- The business must have been in operation for at least 3 months;
- The business owner may be seeking support for customer, product, and business model development;
- A maximum of 2 team members (preferably founders) must be able to attend a 3-month incubation programme from March to May 2021; and
- The top 5 winners of the incubation programme must be able to attend a 6-month acceleration programme from July to December 2021.
For more information, visit https://scwomenintech.co.zm/