Welcome to the first BfE newsletter of 2022! 🎉 | |
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Dear BfE family,
Happy (belated) New Year! I hope this email finds you doing well. In my last newsletter, I offered some food for thought on where BfE is heading. After reflecting on the highlights from the past year and expounding upon our goals for 2022 – with BfE Advisors, Global Heads and others – I realized just how much progress we've made since BfE began as a small student club at Cambridge in 2015. Given where we started, it's remarkable to see this community continue to grow. We now have a strong student presence across 5 countries and a global team comprised of over 50 volunteers. It's invigorating to witness the commitment, passion, and grit that so many BfE members have on a weekly basis, and those I get to interact with continue to impress me. A big part of the reason I continue to believe in what we do is because our community remains so strong. I'm grateful to you all for taking the plunge to join this organization (for whatever reason you had) and contribute in your own unique way – we are stronger because of your efforts!
Though it wasn't listed as a goal in my newsletter from last month, I would like to speak with more of you this year. I'm making it my unofficial goal to connect with more BfE members across chapters and other global teams that I don't ordinarily interact with. If you would like to reach out and chat, please email me or send me a Slack message. Let's continue to make this community even more vibrant in 2022 and beyond.
For now, however, I wish you all a happy and healthy February.
With lots of gratitude,
Jordan |
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Missed something within BfE this month? Here's what you need to know:
- ICYMI: We welcomed the 9 new social enterprises admitted into the Spring 2022 Cohort of our Incubation Programme last month! Please watch the event if you missed it – it's a great opportunity to hear directly from all the founders about their businesses 🚀
- ICYMI: The BfE New Delhi Chapter has officially launched! They completed their onboarding program with Annie (Global Strategy Head), successfully recruited new Consulting Associates, and our now beginning their very first engagement with Ladewin Education (Nigeria) 🇳🇬
- The BfE Tech Division hosted two successful product townhalls last month, which showcased UI/UX mockups of the BfE Intranet. For many attendees, it was their first time seeing the sleek designs. Missed the event and want a sneak peek at what BfE Tech is building? Rewatch the recordings from the townhall on volunteer management workflow and the other on startup recruitment workflow at this link
- The BfE Global Operations team gave a presentation for Chapter Startup Recruitment members on how to present BfE externally to startups (and other partners) in preparation for conducting due diligence on applicants for the Autumn 2022 Cohort. If you fancy learning tips and tricks for how to talk about BfE, check out the slides from the event
- We're co-hosting an event with Stepchange Africa on February 16! Register at this link to hear from 4 esteemed speakers discuss the benefits of African startups participating in accelerator programs
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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
- We are thrilled to announce that we will be onboarding Joanna Chan as the new Co-Head of Incubation! Joanna is currently a manager at Techstars, an international accelerator, and previously held managerial and BD positions at WDHB. Coming from the inside of a successful accelerator with a pair of fresh eyes, Joanna will help identify spots in our Incubation Programme where we can unlock greater impact for startups. We look forward to working with Joanna on exciting initiatives moving forward. Note that for Joanna to have first-hand experience before committing to the position long-term, she will first join BfE under a 6-month "trial period”
- After a discussion with the chapter leadership team, we decided to cancel the Quarterly Incubation Meeting and instead participate in the monthly Chapter Ps/VPs meeting organised by Annie (Global Strategy Head). This change will allow us to gather information in a more timely manner while reducing meeting time for chapter leaders
🤝 Outreach
- Communications: We're excited to announce that we've onboarded Marie Prado as a Global Content Manager! In this new role, Marie will be managing our Medium publication and writing insightful pieces to grow our audience in the social enterprise ecosystem. Please welcome her 👏
- Partnerships:
- We're exploring our partnership with Satgana, a venture studio focused on launching planet positive startups. So far, we have connected with the Satgana team to share our deal flow and discuss future co-hosted events. They have already sent us the decks of a few startups that may fit our Incubation Programme criteria – and we look forward to sharing more in the future!
- We've been collaborating with CliMatr, an ESG consultancy firm helping to enable African companies to embed sustainability within their business models. Moving forward, we will be co-hosting an ESG integration event for startups in mid-March. Hopefully this event will spark some interest for BfE startups to sign up for the ~4-6 week long ESG training course that CliMatr will be offering to BfE startups this summer
🔋 Strategy & Operations
- Strategy:
- BfE New Delhi Chapter Onboarding: Officially complete! Please welcome the new BfE New Delhi Chapter to our network! Follow them on LinkedIn and Instagram as well 🤗
- BfE Vancouver Relaunch: BfE Vancouver is back for another semester, led by the amazing team of Erina (President) and Kate (Vice President)!
- New Chapter Handbook: We're creating a handbook for new chapter Ps/VPs from pilot chapters. This handbook is expected to be released this month, and will include the following content:
- Application & Evaluation Phases
- Onboarding Process & Content (Phase I: Recruiting, Phase II: Onboarding, Phase III: Engagement, and Phase IV: Post-Engagement
- Global Team Contacts & Resources
- Key Chapter Resources
- FAQs
- Monthly Meeting w/ Chapter Leadership: We held a meeting with Chapter Ps/VPs with the Global Incubation and Impact Research Divisions
- Student Testimonial Video Project: This is almost complete. Stay tuned! 👀
- Operations:
- We set the following strategic priorities across both Startup Recruitment (SR) and Mentorships this year: greater diversity, better engagement with stakeholders, and more training opportunities
- SR workshop in Jan: For more information on how to present BfE externally and how to conduct due diligence on startups, see these slides
- After some deliberation, we shifted the BfE Incubation Programme application deadlines for startups: now 1 Apr for consideration in our Autumn cohort and 1 Oct for our Spring cohort
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👩💻 Impact Research
- We're working to develop BfE's first-ever Impact Themes! Following discussions among Global Heads as well as Chapter Presidents/VPs, we're excited to design impact themes that will enable us to compare relevant metrics across startups, help founders become more investor ready, and polish our own impact reporting processes.
- Our division has been hard at work finalizing pre- and post-engagement surveys across our startup, student, and mentor stakeholders.
- We've have also begun focusing on our first Annual Impact Report, which we hope to release in the first half of this year!
⚙️ Technology
- We have concluded our recruitment for software developers and started BfE Intranet Development, our first cross-chapter project with chapter and global teams joining hands to contribute to the development
- Check out the recording for our January Division Meeting to learn about the newly established BfE IT Strategy (slide deck) from our new Global Technology Co-Head Brenda and chapter directors
- The Product Management and UI/UX teams have hosted two Product Townhalls to showcase the UI prototypes for the upcoming BfE Intranet covering the Volunteer Application Management and Startup Application Management workflows. Check out the recordings and the deck for a sneak peak into BfE Intranet feature prototypes. Feel free to reach out to Brenda for any questions or feedback
- We are also actively looking for Global Product Manager, Global Tech Outreach Manager, Global Tech Talent Manager and UI/UX Designer roles supporting Ian (Global UI/UX Manager), so feel free to reach out to Kathi (Global Tech Programme Manager) for internal referrals. Additionally, we are also inviting Tech Leadership Mentors for our Tech Leadership Fellowship Programme, so do reach out to Kathi if you have suitable professionals with leadership experiences in technology
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Our chapters have been busy this month, with the academic year kicking off recently.
🇬🇧 Cambridge
- Lent Term Recruitment: We’re pleased to announce that we’ve had great responses from the Cambridge community – across undergraduate, MBA, MPhil and PhD programmes. We’re now interviewing the 40-50 people who have applied to join our Chapter
- Welcoming the New Leadership Team: We are excited to welcome our new leadership team for the upcoming year
- After remaining mostly virtual during COVID-19, we held our first in-person meeting and social this month, and are looking forward to more in-person events throughout the year
🇺🇸 New York
- Incubation: Our Consulting and Finance Advisory teams completed pre-intro calls with Imara Art Designs (Rwanda), Leafylife Limited (Kenya) and Toolkit iSkills (Kenya). Additionally, we onboarded 11 new members onto the incubation teams and are looking forward to working with these amazing startups!
- Programme Development: Teams are beginning to schedule meetings to begin the semester. New SR Associates are receiving training on how to present BfE externally, complete the due diligence process, and expectations for the semester. Our Growth and Partnerships team is rolling out a chapter-wide mentorship program to enable community building. Also, we completed recruiting for our Freshman Education Program and the Global Tech Education Program! We have recruited 6 freshmen for our Education Program and look forward to giving them a crash course on all things BfE and social impact!
🇸🇬 Singapore
- We just ended our chapter recruitment for this cycle, and we are happy to share that this round we got a much greater diversity of applicants from the various universities around Singapore! Looking forward to further growing our presence locally
- We are kickstarting a new cohesion initiative to facilitate bonding between our Singapore associates called "Bridging Buddies"! The goal is for members from different teams to get to know one another better, and for members to have an opportunity to collaborate and hang out outside of their designated teams. It has been difficult for us to get together during this COVID-19 period, so this initiative would allow us to meet up in smaller groups too
- We have expanded our Technical Advisory (TA) team who will be working on 3 Projects this semester. Since TA is still relatively new within BfE, the Singapore team is looking to work closely with Global to spearhead the strategic expansion of TA!
🇨🇦 Vancouver
- Leadership Transition: We had Kate Hanson and Erina Kikuchi step into their new roles as Vice President and President, respectively
- Recruitment:
- We wrapped up our spring recruitment cycle and are pleased to have had 26 people apply from UBC to join our chapter this semester!
- Currently, we are in the process of onboarding 9 new members to the team: 1 Consulting Director, 5 Consulting Associates, 1 Communications Co-Director, and 2 Communications Associates. If we are successful with that, our chapter will be comprised of 14 people, a 40% growth from the start of the previous semester
- Incubation: We initiated preliminary communication with our client, Beyond Solid Waste Management (Kenya)!
🇮🇳 New Delhi
- In the past month, chapter leadership completed the first-ever recruitment for incoming consulting associates, which involved a case competition and 2-stage interview process
- We conducted skill sharing sessions on storytelling, consulting, PowerPoint and Excel basics, and slide design
- Our Consulting team's first client call with Ladewin Education (Nigeria) took place, so as to decide upon the project scope and subsequent deliverables
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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 BfE Technology:
- Shoutout to Ian (Global UI/UX Manager) and Anjli (Global UI/UX Volunteer) for 5.5 months of dedication and hard work in designing aesthetic, sleek (a potential user's feedback) and professional UI/UX wireframes and interactive prototypes for the BfE Intranet
- Shoutout to Hua (Global Software Development Manager) for spending a tremendous amount of time and efforts in the Intranet project's recruitment, planning and execution, and playing a vital role in coordinating the largest project BfE Tech has ever seen
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 From BfE Cambridge: Shoutout to Kieron Patel (Outreach VP)! This is Kieron’s second year on the committee after doing a great job as the G&P Director last year |
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We're stoked to welcome 9 new social enterprises into our pro bono Incubation Programme! Our Spring 2022 Cohort includes 8 startups from Africa and 1 startup from India – collectively, these businesses are catalyzing deep change in their communities across clean energy, microfinance and agriculture, among other sectors. Our Spring Cohort includes:
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We're co-hosting another event with our trusted partner, Stepchange Africa, on 16 February! Ever wonder what the real benefit is for startups to participate in accelerator programs? Tune in to hear four experts discuss the merits of startup accelerators and how they can help early-stage businesses grow and scale their impact. Event panelists include:
- Brian Mangeni, CEO at Einstein Rising (Ugandan accelerator)
- Froydis Archer, COO at TechBridge Invest (Kenyan accelerator)
- Yussouf Ntwali, Co-Founder and CEO at BAG Innovation (Rwandan ed-tech startup; BfE alum)
- Julio Mupemba, CIO at Melanin Kapital (early-stage impact investor)
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🗞 News, Resources and Jobs | |
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