Announcing the 2020 SOCAP Virtual Scholarship Entrepreneur Winners

Every year, SOCAP grants over 100 scholarships to social entrepreneurs from all over the globe. This year marks the first virtual SOCAP Scholarship cohort in our program’s history. Due to COVID-19, entrepreneurs will be joining the conference, along with other attendees virtually. While meeting in-person is a very different experience than joining a conference virtually, we are working on innovative ways to support our entrepreneurs in their virtual experience to help them receive the most out of SOCAP. We will continue some of these new virtual support initiatives even once SOCAP returns to an in-person flagship event. 

Some of the new initiatives we are implementing  for our virtual entrepreneur cohort include:  

• Free access to the new Abaca platform by Village Capital,  a matchmaking platform for entrepreneurs and investors to connect virtually.
• Additional orientation webinars for the entrepreneurs to get to know one another leading up to the conference in October, and hear from expert guest speakers. Speakers will cover topics such as: choosing the right investor for their venture, thinking about digital storytelling for their venture and finding a variety of sources of capital (human, financial, etc) during SOCAP.
• More online resources for their orientation folder and video recordings to help them navigate our new virtual platform.
• More opportunities to present their ventures virtually to the SOCAP community through digital storytelling, presentations and conversations. 
• A Lookbook featuring each scholarship entrepreneur, to support our mission to drive capital to these emerging innovative leaders and their enterprises.
• We continue to add tools and resources as we approach SOCAP to provide additional support. 

Our Cohort This Year

We received over 300 applications for the SOCAP Entrepreneur Scholarship, of which we accepted a cohort of 111 entrepreneurs. For the first time as part of our scholarship program SOCAP, in partnership with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), we are welcoming a cohort of artist entrepreneurs, with a particular focus on artists of color who are creating enterprises and impact in their communities.

We are excited to introduce you to this year’s entrepreneurs, representing incredible solutions to pressing social, cultural, and environmental problems from across the globe.

Find more details about each entrepreneur in the 2020 cohort along with their organizations in our inaugural SOCAP Scholarship Entrepreneur Lookbook. The Lookbook includes each enterprise’s mission, goals, and the investment they are seeking to reach their goals.

Scholarship Entrepreneurs Winners