Women Entrepreneurship Incubation Program
21 January 2020 - yerevan

…This program has been completed…

Description

The Women Entrepreneurship Incubation Program is a 9-month program by Impact Hub Yerevan and EFSE Entrepreneurship Academy under the EU4Business initiative that supports women who are trying to make the world a better place through their entrepreneurial solutions.

Goal & Benefits

The overall objective of the project is to strengthen the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Armenia and to boost women entrepreneurship.

The specific objective of the project is to run our first Women Entrepreneurship Incubation Program that will:

  • assist women-led startups to develop, validate and implement their social innovation ideas
  • connect women entrepreneurs to a national and international community of entrepreneurs, mentors and philanthropic investors
  • raise awareness about role models of women entrepreneurs in Armenia

The incubation offers Impact Hub’s unique ecosystem, including:

  • professional individual coaching by Incubation Manager
  • mentorship by entrepreneurs/professionals in their area of practice (each project will be matched with a mentor)
  • membership at Impact Hub Yerevan with access to an inspiring space & infrastructure
  • peer-to-peer learning component and professional networking through facilitated events with a community of 250+ creative innovators
  • access to 100+ Impact Hubs around the world
  • learning curriculum designed for social impact startups, including trainings and workshops on financial management, legal management, team management, social entrepreneurship, idea validation, business modeling, fundraising, pitching and public speaking, etc.

* Please note: this incubation program does not include financial assistance

Timeline

  • The length of the incubation is 9 months
  • Application deadline: February 4th, 2020, 23:59 (Yerevan local time)
  • Starting time: late February 2020

Eligibility

Women-led bold and daring teams implementing ideas for the common good are eligible to apply.

Teams selected for the incubation must commit to pursuing their initiative as a top priority (i.e. with at least 80% of their time) and promise to participate in at least 80% of programs, events and community activities at Impact Hub Yerevan.

Impact Hub Yerevan’s Women Entrepreneurship Incubation Program Mentors

Arthur Pokrikyan

Arthur Pokrikyan

Arthur Pokrikyan is a T-shaped professional with 10+ years of solid expertise in project design, implementation and evaluation in different areas such as innovation, education, research, finance, telecom, non-profit management and retail. He is currently leading innovative programs to advance science and technology ecosystem in Armenia and beyond. Moreover, he consults local and international organizations in the development and execution of financial education initiatives by applying principles of behavioral insights, impact evaluation and multi-stakeholder management. Furthermore, he is teaching Economics through IB Diploma Programme and has been invited to speak at various local and international conferences organized by OECD, AFI, EurAsEC, Lsaran Moscow, Techstars Startup Weekend Dushanbe and more. 

Stepan Khzrtian

Stepan Khzrtian

A licensed attorney in Armenia and California, Stepan Khzrtian is the founding partner of LegalLab, an international business law firm with offices in Armenia and the United States. He is also President of Huys Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports Armenian youth obtain an excellent education to serve the nation and humanity, and is closely involved with the activities of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church. He enjoys pulling espresso shots, weaving words into stories, and looking at the sky. 

Alessandro Mambeli

Alessandro Mambelli

Alessandro Mambelli is the co-founder of Cartisan, a map-making organisation designing and producing topographic maps of Armenia. He is a robotics engineer with an MSc in AI, with a diverse set of experiences, ranging from venture-backed tech-startup, to bootstrapped business. He was part of the team that built TUMO Yerevan IT systems pre-opening, where he also led the first Robotics workshops. 

Gevorg Poghosyan

Gevorg Poghosyan

Senior Consultant and Head of the Business Support Office since 2012, Gevorg Poghosyan started his career in a local commercial bank in 2007 and later, in 2009, joined the Inspection Reform Team at the RA Ministry of Economy, where he led the regulatory reform project. Gevorg is specialized in the coordination of the consultants’ team work on business reforms mainly related to SMEs. Gevorg has a background education of Finance and Credit Faculty at the Armenian State University of Economics, 2003-2008 and later PhD in Economics at NAS Economy Institute 2008-2010.

Areg Maghakian

Areg Maghakian

Areg Maghakian is the Founder and Co-Owner of Victory Point Cafe, a board game cafe in Berkeley, California. He has been a long-time board game enthusiast. He was the former Country Director of Armenia Tree Project. He is the President of the Board of HDIF, and is currently starting a coffee roasting business. 

Ani Baboomian

Ani Baboomian

Ani is the CEO of Impact Hub Yerevan. While in her twenties, she was coordinating construction crews for the Tumo Center for Creative Technologies in Yerevan, a non-profit landmark project providing free education, fostering skills and creativity at the intersection of art and technology. Ani holds a Master’s degree in Project and Enterprise Management from University College London (UCL). She started working with Impact Hub Yerevan board members as programs and events manager in 2015 and has been growing within the organization since. 

Dzovinar Harkian

Dzovig Harkian

Dzovig Harkian graduated with a Professional Master’s Degree in International Organizations and built her knowledge and skills on maximizing the social impact of CSOs and their sustainability, through the pillars of social interventions and solutions. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political and Administrative Sciences and a Minor in Law. Dzovig has work experience with the World Bank’s “R4R” project as the Operations Coordinator, research for improved quality of the Lebanese schools, and the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in Beirut, within the Social and Human Sciences Programme in the MENA regional implementation. Born in Beirut, she moved to Armenia in early 2019 and collaborated with UNICEF Armenia within the Together4Armenia platform, by providing training sessions in several Armenian regions and cities on empowerment, both for Youth and Women, as well as some sessions at Yerevan State University.  

Nazareth Seferian

Nazareth Seferian

Nazareth Seferian has been working in sustainable business for more than ten years. He started working in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Armenia in 2008 and managed sustainability projects at Orange Armenia for four years before shifting to a career as an independent consultant in several countries. Since 2015, he has worked with more than fifty non-profit organizations seeking to transform into social enterprises, as well as the donor organizations that have supported the growing field of social entrepreneurship in Armenia. He also teaches university-level courses and runs training sessions on a range of business topics, including strategic sessions on CSR and SE. Nazareth holds an Executive MBA from the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin and a post-graduate certificate in sustainable business from the University of Cambridge.

Suren Mkhitaryan

Suren Mkhitaryan

Suren Mkhitaryan has been working in the fields of social entrepreneurship, civil society, entrepreneurship education, formal and non-formal education for more than eight years. He is currently a freelance trainer and expert on social entrepreneurship, running various training courses (in total 2000+ participants), consultations to social enterprises and SE projects. He has been the coordinator of the Community Development through Social Entrepreneurship EU funded long-term project in Armenia, which was one of the first pilot projects in the field of social entrepreneurship in Armenia. He has developed several projects in the social entrepreneurship field, which are ongoing now, and are directed to the implementation of training of trainers, development of multilingual online courses, games, as well as new/customized tools for the creation of social enterprises and for its education. Currently Suren is also the vice-president of ICIRLD NGO.”  

Aline Masrelian

Aline Masrelian

Aline Masrelian holds a B.S of Civil Engineering from Aleppo University, has worked with GIZ in rebuilding old Aleppo city in Syria, is a member at FCEM worldwide as well as AWAY Armenia. She has kept busy by working with Aleppo NGO, Member at DWV in Yerevan and more, and has been selected for the Accelerate 2030 program. She has shared her knowledge and experience as a mentor for startups at Bridge of CEO which is funded by AGBU Armenia and is an Ambassador at Iris incubator which is funded by EU and Caritas Armenia. She is an entrepreneur via the Development and Chain Manager at Sharoyan -Sarian LLC since 2000. The company was established in  1999 and specializes in producing, importing and exporting Middle Eastern sweets (nougat, rahat…), pakhlavas, spices, nuts and more.

Alexandre Akchatel

Alex Achkatel

Alexandre Akchatel completed his Bachelor’s in Economics at the University of Birmingham followed by a Master’s in Emerging Economies & International Development at King’s College London. Professionally, Alex started his career in the world of Public Relations and Public Affairs within a consulting group in London, focusing on research and media relations. He then joined Infosys, a management consulting firm specializing in strategy and IT transformations, working across different disciplines such as Design Thinking, Business Analysis, Change Management and Agile. He is particularly interested in sustainability matters at all levels of society, should it be via entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, government, non-profits and corporate and above all how these can collaborate effectively. 

Marta Brazão

Marta Brazão

Marta is a Circular Economy advocate, passionate about cradle-to-cradle design, zero waste, social innovation, and collaborative action. Over at CEP, she is responsible for project management and, she is also the coordinator of Repair Café Lisboa. Additionally, Marta holds profound expertise on the third sector, having worked with a variety of NGOs in the Portuguese-Speaking African countries, and her background spans Development and Social Work. 

Timothy Straight

Tim Straight

Timothy Straight holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Affairs and an MBA in International Business from George Washington University.  He founded Homeland Development Initiative Foundation(HDIF) in 2013 as a further development of Homeland Handicrafts(HH) started in 2010. HDIF aims to create jobs mostly for women in rural Armenia through hand-made product development based on traditional techniques and materials. Tim is also the Honorary Consul in Armenia, for both Finland and Norway.  

Gohar Mnatsakanyan

Gohar Mnatsakanyan

Gohar Mnatsakanyan is the Founder/Director of the Social Enterprise, Bohem Studio-Teahouse, which was established in 2017. She is also a founding member of the Association of Social Enterprises of Armenia, since 2015, and the Co-Founder of SRAN Youth Club NGO, since 2008, and the director of SAN International Music Festival, since 2015. She is an artist-pedagogue by profession and in addition to social activities and business, she also teaches painting at an art school and has created a number of cultural projects. 

Click here to view the final report!

Impact Hub Yerevan, EFSE Entrepreneurship Academy

Brought to you by Impact Hub Yerevan and EFSE Entrepreneurship Academy under the EU4Business initiative