THE AWE PROJECT
ACHIEVING WOMEN ENTERPRISE
Empowering women entrepreneurs to drive equitable economic development.
A four day Entrepreneurship Bootcamp and nine month Mentorship Program
to create a community of women entrepreneurs to deliver high impact, high growth wealth creation & positive economic development for their communities.
FREE for selected applicants — bootcamp followed by Pitch Day to win up to $1,000 Prize Seed Money!
Now Launched
The AWE Project: Other ongoing cities
Our Partners
The AWE Project Program Overview
Phase 1: Virtual Bootcamp Sessions
13 prolific sessions
Topic 1: Entrepreneurship – Formalizing an understanding.
This interactive session will allow participants to explore their own definitions of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial role models. To make this an energizing session, the discussion will be promoted by inspiring entrepreneurs that can engage the mentee by sharing their stories. Key takeaways for mentee are: How does an Entrepreneur earn wealth? Pro and Cons of being an Entrepreneur. How can Entrepreneurship become an effective option for Women to gain economic independence?
Topic 4: Marketing
Any business needs to find the way to reach its customers. Here the participants will be encouraged to think about the essential purpose and thinking that goes with marketing their service or product to its key customers. A special focus will be put on digital marketing methods to reach out to a broader, potentially global target customer base.
Topic 7: Operations.
Mentors will leverage their experience in running businesses to address challenges within HR and operations. How best to optimize supply chain and run their company effectively.
Topic 10: Effective Supply Chain Strategies
Learn how to find, source, and optimize your suppliers and adopt relevant technologies which have a demonstrable return on investment. Participants will develop a Go To Market Strategy to implement this topic in their business
Topic 2: Gender Bias – Recognition & Resolution
Gender bias can exist within families, in the market place, within sources of funding and within pools of employee talent. This topic will discuss how women entrepreneurs pro-actively recognize Gender Bias and address it.
Topic 5: Finance
Probably the toughest and most important aspect of the course is to give these participants an appreciation for financial requirements in a business plan and operation. Additionally, local speakers from banks and other Non banking Financial Intermediaries will be invited to discuss programs to support the launch and growth of small enterprises and those backed by women. Additionally, growth through strategic alliances will be discussed.
Topic 8: HR
This session will provide the participants with the overview of crucial aspects of HR when launching a business.
Topic 11: Effective Leadership Skills
In addition, it is critical that the participants learn key leadership skills — they are required to build and present their leadership and soft skills to sustain them after the conclusion of this journey. Some of the key long-term skills are: · Teamwork & Team building skills · Leadership & listening skills · Project management · Presentation skills
Topic 13: Business Models in Action
Finally, in order to provide the participants with an ability to coalesce the learning and also put into action what they learnt, they will be given a Go To Market strategy road map which culminates into a business plan.
Get inspired — Develop your own business plan as you listen to inspiration stories of successful entrepreneurs.
Topic 3: Business Model Canvas
To promote participants thinking about their business ideas, it is important to give them a context, a business lens, to look at new opportunities and assess their viabilities as a business. The goal of this session is for the students to start thinking about their revenue model – who is my customer and how do I get paid for my product or service? By exploring the different types of business models and understanding their value proposition, students will see new opportunities to make money for their products or service. A business model canvas is a very important tool.
Topic 6: Legal Considerations
This session will provide the participants with the overview of legal aspects of a business and protecting their ideas so that participants gain an appreciation for the legal requirements to launching and starting a business. AWE will seek to invite a local practicing lawyer to the extent possible, to answer participants questions.
Topic 9: Technology in Business
Learn about how to transform business processes by adoption of appropriate levels of technology to improve processes and outcomes which deliver results. Areas to focus on include human centric and customer centric technology design. Participants will develop a Go To Market for digital transformation.
Topic 12: Effective Presentation Skills
Making effective elevator pitches. An Elevator pitch is critical for a business owner for all stakeholders including customers, employees, suppliers and funding sources.
Phase 2: Bespoke Mentoring
Align each mentee with a mentor for 30 hours of mentoring over 6 months.
“It all began with an idea. And now you want to grow your business. Knowledge and an aligned mentor by your side can make all the difference.”
— Seema Chaturvedi, Founder & Chair, AWE Foundation