Accelerator Selection Tool to Debut at SOCAP17

SOCAP October 4, 2017

A SOCAP Guest Post by Nayelli Gonzalez, Managing Director of Marketing & Partnerships at Conveners.org
Did you know that it takes an entrepreneur an average of 60 hours to research, evaluate, and determine to which accelerator programs to apply? Conveners.org, Sphaera, and ImpactSpace will unveil a tool next week at SOCAP17 that helps to simplify that process and increase the probability of accelerator application success.
During next week’s fourth annual Accelerating the Accelerators (AtA) workshop at SOCAP17, Conveners.org, Sphaera, and ImpactSpace will debut the Accelerator Selection Tool, an online database that maps the global impact accelerator landscape. The first aggregator of its kind, the tool helps social entrepreneurs easily find accelerator programs that best fit the need of their venture, while providing valuable social enterprise and market trend data to impact accelerators and investors.
The Accelerator Selection Tool is the product of collaboration between Conveners.org, Sphaera, Impact Space, and other network partners who will provide the tool as a free resource to their community. Developed using an aggregate of both private and publicly available information about impact accelerator, incubator, business plan competition, and fellowship programs, the Accelerator Selection Tool provides the most comprehensive impact accelerator program information in the world and is an example of the power of collaboration.
“The Accelerator Selection Tool aggregates information from leading database partners and impact accelerator networks, each of which contributes a piece of the puzzle to create the most comprehensive impact accelerator program information in the world,” said Avary Kent, Executive Director of Conveners.org.
The tool includes data for about 750 impact accelerators, incubators, fellowship programs, and business plan competitions from around the world, and allows users to filter their search based on an accelerator’s programmatic offering, impact focus, region of impact, and more.
“The easier we can make it for social entrepreneurs to find up-to-date information about programs that advance their businesses, the faster they can get to work addressing the urgent problems of our time,” said Dr. Astrid Scholz, CEO of Sphaera. “The Accelerator Selection Tool is a key part of the digital plumbing we are building to make the business of social change more effective.”
If you’ll be at SOCAP next week and are an accelerator program manager interested in connecting with peers and viewing a demo of the Accelerator Selection Tool, we invite you to join the Accelerating the Accelerators workshop next Tuesday, October 10 from 9am to 2pm. We will also be discussing the tool next Thursday, October 12 at the “From the Talk to the Walk: Collaborate or Die” conversation from 5:15pm to 6:15pm.
To view the tool and for further information about adding your support program to the database if you are an impact accelerator, incubator, fellowship program, or business plan competition, visit Conveners.org’s Accelerator Selection Tool webpage.

About

Nayelli Gonzalez is Managing Director of Marketing & Partnerships at Conveners.org. A registered 501(c)(3) not-for-profit, Conveners.org is a capacity building organization that drives system-level progress by supporting the growing ecosystem of impact-focused conveners, accelerators, and mappers. We manage three flagship programs for those communities for which we develop programs, tools, and resources that construct pathways for connection, coordination, and collaboration. Our partners include global networks such as ANDE, Echoing Green, Skoll World Forum, SOCAP, Tendrel, and Opportunity Collaboration. A trained journalist with an MBA, Nayelli writes about social enterprise and sustainable business trends for a variety of publications.

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