Welcome to the very first BfE newsletter! 🎉 | |
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Dear BfE family,
I have a confession: I'm not sure how to start this newsletter. I've never tried writing one before. But life is a series of trials and errors, and writing this will no doubt be a useful communication lesson. Hopefully I improve as time goes on, but in the meantime, please bare with me as we navigate this new channel together.
You see, over the last few years, we've grown in size from a small student society to a global non-profit with over 200 active members supporting our mission around the world — from Singapore to Vancouver and everywhere in between. While we use Slack to communicate internally, let's be honest: not everyone checks it. This makes it hard to ensure that information isn't siloed in certain corners of our ever-growing organization.
Can we do a better job flattening communication so that everyone receives the right information to carry out their tasks more efficiently? I believe we can, and this newsletter is my attempt at doing so. Once per month, you can expect to receive an update from me that covers the following 7 sections:
📋 [TLDR] 5 Main Updates
🌍 Global Updates (e.g. happenings across our global divisions)
📚 Chapter Updates (e.g. happenings across our chapters)
🙋 Members Corner (e.g. well-deserved shoutouts and spotlighting new/outgoing members)
💡 Startup Spotlight (e.g. select updates from our startup portfolio and alumni)
📆 Upcoming Events (e.g. BfE events you can attend)
🗞 News, Resources and Jobs (e.g. stay "in the know" about social entrepreneurship and impact in emerging markets)
🤔 Anything else? (please drop me an email or fill out the form in the footer to add a suggested topic)
So today, we're taking the first steps to communicating more directly with you via this newsletter. This particular volume will be longer than future ones (I promise). Here's a (virtual) toast to building a stronger, more vibrant BfE community together: 🍻
Keep dreaming big,
Jordan |
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Missed something within BfE this month? Here's what you need to know:
- All Spring 2021 Incubation Programme engagements finished up smoothly. Our chapters completed 7 Consulting, 5 Finance Advisory, 1 Legal Advisory and 1 Technical Advisory engagement for clients from Africa and Asia over the last 3-4 months
- After a successful recruitment cycle, we onboarded 8 new members to the Global Tech Division to help bolster our internal tech capabilities. Check out our new tech team on our tech website
- We finished recruiting a summer class of 7 interns! Students from Europe, the U.S. and Singapore are joining us in four different roles to help accelerate some key organizational priorities
- Our chapter Startup Recruitment teams are hard at work reviewing the 160+ (!!) startups who applied for our Incubation Programme Autumn Cohort. Register to attend our biannual Global Review Committee next month to hear ~15 startup pitches and see which startups will be accepted to BfE
- BfE made it on to a podcast! For the first time ever! Click the button below to hear me speak about BfE on SDG Talks if you haven't already
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We've continued to make steady progress on various initiatives at the global level. This month was a busy one. Here's what each division was up to:
📊 Incubation
- Cheri (Global Consulting Manager) and Harry (Global Technical Advisory Manager) departed, while we welcomed Shivana as the new Global Legal Advisory Manager
- We're exploring a potential pro bono partnership with Sidley, a top global law firm, to provide legal guidance to BfE and our Legal Advisory teams. Shoutout to Hui Zhen, our former Global Legal Advisory Manager for advancing these discussions
🤝 Outreach
- Communications: We've been focused on growing our presence on LinkedIn and Facebook, while also putting in plans to start our monthly external newsletter in June
- Partnerships: We are in talks with various organisations to forge potential partnerships, including Deloitte U.S. (shoutout to Vedika!), SEIP, Maanch and the MOME University of Art and Design. We've also recently concluded two four-month pro bono engagements with Six Degrees Edinburgh. Check out the Impact Research section for more!
🔋 Strategy & Operations
- We renamed this division to 'Strategy & Operations' (instead of just Operations). More on this decision to come in future newsletters
- Rachel Goh (former Vancouver Co-President) has been successfully onboarded as our new Global Mentorship Manager. She'll be working with our chapter Growth & Partnerships teams to oversee our engagement with professional mentors
- The chapter Startup Recruitment teams are hard at work interviewing and conducting due diligence on startup applicants for our Autumn cohort. Jeson (Global Operations Head) and Zack (Global Startup Recruitment Manager) have been supporting them ahead of our first ever Global Review Committee on 26 June
👩💻 Impact Research
- After months of work, the teams from Six Degrees Edinburgh handed over two deliverables for us to use in our impact measurement work going forward. These include a strategic guide for our startups to improve their sustainability practices, as well as a bespoke impact framework for our startups to track their impact KPIs in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We hope to pilot these deliverables in the coming months with select startup alumni. The impact framework, in particular, will help us improve our measurement of startup progress towards certain SDGs, all the while aggregating impact data for us as an organisation, which is something we've never been able to do in a systematic way
- We are excited to expand the division and welcome Fareeha (former BfE New York Consulting Associate) to the team as a Global M&E Manager next month
⚙️ Technology
- Our tech website has been newly revamped!
- We successfully recruited xx new members to join the tech division. This expands our tech team to xx people, who bring expertise in various disciplines ranging from UI/UX to cybersecurity
- Kathi (Global Tech Programme Manager), Brie (Global Tech Strategies Manager) and others are beginning to create resources for a new Tech Leaders Fellowship Programme. By the end of the summer, we hope to have a set of training materials ready, alongside a roadmap for implementation. The program will be geared towards experienced undergraduates and junior professionals keen to join BfE and learn advanced tech skills and tech management skills
- Global Managers are doing a massive restructuring of our development pipeline to boost productivity for our developers and make our code more reliable. Our work ranges from access management, documentation, project management, coding training, DevOps improvements to design standardisation. Stay tuned, and email technology@bridgesforenterprise.com if you want to get involved!
- The Cambridge Tech team successfully wrapped up and handed off their AI-based mentor matching tool to the Global Operations Division. A big shoutout to Brie, Xing (Global Analytics and Algorithm Manager) and Ziyi (Cambridge Tech Director) for all the hard work
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Our chapters have been hard at work studying for exams! But they also have some exciting updates to share, including:
🇬🇧 Cambridge
- After the end of Spring Term, BfE Cambridge is happy to report that we’ve wrapped up our meaningful work with 6 startups!
- 3 startups will be graduating from BfE – Kineer Services (India), Safeplan Uganda and Eden Care (Rwanda)
- 3 startups will be moving to the next stage of their BfE journey – Cool & Clean (Thailand), Rohobot (Ethiopia) and MCA Tech (Tanzania)
- Incubation teams have all delivered excellent deliverables for our clients – ranging from pitch decks, indicative market research and legal research
- Our Growth and Partnerships team has developed several promising leads, including plans and discussions with TechBridge Invest and the Global African Agribusiness Accelerator Platform to enhance our African ecosystem presence and programme offerings
- Our Startup Recruitment team has identified 4 exciting candidates for the upcoming Global Review Committee in June
🇺🇸 New York
- Our Incubation teams successfully wrapped up 3 engagements with She Wins Mexico, Coronet Blockchain (South Africa), and Sustainable Youth Development Foundation (Uganda). We also successfully managed an external engagement with our partner Gamecock Consulting Club for PathtoGrowth Entrepreneurship Centre (Nigeria). More details here 👇
- She Wins Mexico is an NGO that empowers women and girls through sports education. Our Consulting team concluded a 3-4 month engagement on developing their social media and impact measurement strategy
- Coronet Blockchain is a social enterprise that uses IBM-developed blockchain technology to bring transparency and authenticity to the hair wig and extensions industry in Africa. Our Finance Advisory team concluded a 3-4 month engagement on developing a DCF/P&L model, grant pitch deck, grant application strategy and impact measurement strategy for the founders
- SYDF is a youth empowerment NGO that offers hands-on skills training to alleviate youth unemployment in Uganda. Our Finance Advisory team developed a pitch deck, created an impact measurement recording Excel sheet, formed a grant application strategy and created an executive search strategy for the business
- BfE New York's year-long Freshman Education Program successfully graduated its first cohort of 6 Entrepreneurship Fellows. The program ended with a case competition presentation, which you can view a recording of here!
- Our Technology team is developing a public portal for BfE to better engage with startup applicants. When deployed on our website, this tech project will allow startups to obtain a unique log-in to check on their application status.
- Startup Recruitment Director Catherine Sang conducted a data science project for BfE's analysis of startup applicants during the Autumn cohort. The SR team is also working on interviews and preparing materials for the Global Review Committee
- Our Communications team completed case studies for BAG Innovation (startup alumni) and successfully launched 3 new Instagram campaigns: Mentor Mondays, Startup Spotlights, and Member Spotlights. Follow our Instagram to check it out!
- The Growth & Partnerships team held three 'Let's Talk' events during their student recruitment cycle this past month, including one with our client Coronet Blockchain and another with She Wins Mexico. They also held a Let's Talk event focused on impact investment with professionals from Charles River Ventures, the US International Development Finance Corporation, and the UN SDG Fund. Check out a screenshot from our event with Coronet Blockchain 👇
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🇸🇬 Singapore
- The Singapore Chapter wrapped up our semester this month! Our Spring incubation engagements have come to a close, thanks to all the hard work put in by the Directors as well as the advisory teams. We are privileged to have supported social enterprises around the world from Gravilog (mobile healthcare for pregnant women in Palestine) to Instaheal (mental health tech solution for patients in rural India), Eskwelabs (data science upskilling platform in the Philippines) and more
- Our Growth & Partnerships team also has some exciting new partnerships in the works, including collaborations with organisations such as Angels of Impact, Meet Ventures and Novus Paradigm Capital. We are looking toward finalising these partnerships over the summer!
- We ended off the semester with a chapter-wide 'Learning Journey' to the social enterprise Timbre+ for dinner and drinks (and of course, in accordance with social distancing guidelines!) Big kudos to the G&P team for organising this event too! Check out some photos below 👇
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🇳🇱 Rotterdam
- Since the start of February, our Consulting team has been working with a social enterprise called Teamcoby Nigeria. We will officially conclude our engagement with Teamcoby in 1 week. Teamcoby had challenges with their marketing strategy, and thus we decided to help improve their branding and communication. We created a pitch deck template with recommendations on what to include and fill out, in addition to devising recommendations to bolster their marketing and sales strategy, their social media campaigns and their first-ever website
- In addition to this consulting engagement, the Rotterdam Chapter is also focused on recruiting students for our Consulting and Communications teams for September 2021. Follow our Instagram to stay up-to-date!
🇨🇦 Vancouver
- Our chapter went live with a new chapter website on May 18th! This is an exciting, first-of-its-kind project that we took on to assist our fall recruitment efforts. We hope it attracts more prospective students to apply
- We capped off this term by inviting Dan Mathis, one of our professional mentors, to have an informal coffee chat. In this guest speaker series, Dan shared his experiences in university and post-grad life, specifically focusing on his consulting journey, interests and involvement with BfE
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We are so grateful for the outstanding contributions made by the following BfE members this month. Thank you and well done! 👏
- 🌍 From the BfE Global Team: A huge shoutout to Kevin Huang (Global Technology Head) for the outstanding job leading a successful recruitment drive for new tech team members. Another shoutout goes to Jeson Ng (Global Operations Head) for guiding the chapter Startup Recruitment teams into our first Global Review Committee next month
- 🇬🇧 From BfE Cambridge: We would like to highlight the following project leaders for their professionalism and leadership in shaping their deliverables! Christopher Shim (Senior Consulting Associate) and Arnas Mikalauskas (Senior Finance Advisory Associate) - well done!
- 🇸🇬 From BfE Singapore: Team InstaHeal took the effort to produce a marketing flyer at the client’s ad-hoc request within a short timespan outside of the initial scope of work. The team also made prompt improvements on their final deliverables based on the client’s feedbacks at the end-point call. The result: a satisfied client and high-quality output from the BfE Finance Advisory team
- 🇨🇦 From BfE Vancouver: We’re really excited to announce that Hanting has been promoted to chapter VP! We also wish Rachel the best of luck in her new role as part of the global team
- 🇳🇱 From BfE Rotterdam: We're thrilled that Dorine (Consulting Associate) will be stepping up to lead the Consulting team in the Autumn! A big shoutout also goes to Anaelle (Rotterdam President) for her leadership in founding the chapter and leading their first ever consulting engagement
- 🇺🇸 From BfE New York: Shoutout to Sofie Schwallie (incoming Growth & Partnerships Director) for producing a stellar impact measurement analysis for our chapter and global projects. Check it out below and get in touch with her to learn more 👇
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We also welcomed the following new members to the BfE family. Please connect with them 1:1 to say hello!
- 🌍 From the BfE Global Team: A stellar class of 7 summer interns starting on June 3! Shoutout to Isabella, Grace, Shane, Melodie, Zoey, Vanessa and Zoe for joining us
- ⚙️ From the BfE Tech Team: Many people! We now have a full team of tech talent. Check out their profiles on our tech website
- 🇬🇧 From BfE Cambridge: Ziyi Liu as the new Cambridge Technology Director
- 🇺🇸 From BfE New York: 18 new members as part of the chapter's latest recruitment drive. Welcome to the chapter and your BfE journey!
We also said goodbye to a few longtime members who have been with us for years. We're sad to see you go 😌 Thank you for all of your contributions
- Hui Zhen Gan (Global Legal Advisory Manager), who joined us in January 2020 in this role
- Cheri Tng (Global Consulting Manager), who first joined BfE in October 2017 (!!). Cheri served as Singapore Chapter President during the 2019-2020 academic year
- Harry Bickerstaffe (Global Technical Advisory Manager), who first joined BfE in October 2019 and serviced clients on the Cambridge Technical Advisory team
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Curious what our startups have been up to? This month, we're spotlighting a few in our portfolio for their impactful work:
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Mark your calendars so you don't miss out on these events hosted across BfE next month:
- Join us for the first ever BfE Global Review Committee (Autumn Cohort) on 26 June
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🗞 News, Resources and Jobs | |
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