On May 23rd we took our female entrepreneurs on a learning journey on the alternative form of finance; Crowdfunding through our second session of the Female Entrepreneurship Breakfasts program – LearnZilla. Lama Amr the Executive Director of Build Palestine – a platform to connect supporters around the world with social impact projects in Palestine; took the lead to guide 38 ambitious entrepreneurs through this journey.
What is crowdfunding for your idea?
The mobilizer for good explained the meaning of crowdfunding for someone with an idea, as a form of funds often performed over crowdfunding websites and online platforms,
Finance 4Jobs Project and Flow Accelerator in the second year in a row, sign a new partnership to support business development services for 5 new startups, of which 3 are owned by women. This support is expected to mobilize private capital investment and generate more than 28 new jobs.
The Finance for Jobs (F4J) is a 4-year project, implemented by DAI global, LLC (DAI) on behalf of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and funded by the World Bank, with the overarching objective of mobilizing private investments and creating employment opportunities in the West Bank and Gaza.
Five promising Startups owned by great and passionate founders will be supported through Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Matching Grant and Pre-Acceleration Services to boost their market validation and accordingly their investment readiness.
Dedicated to young female tech founders for the ultimate outcome of having an expanded ambition horizon and be equipped with a strong support network of resources, mentors, and role models; Flow Accelerator kicked off the first session in Female Entrepreneurship Breakfasts under the title of “Lift as You Climb by Female Tech Founders” on March 31st, 2021 within the theme of “Females in The Lead”.
Moderated by Rand Safi – Partnerships & Community Manager at Gaza Sky Geeks and through an interactive environment and format; three female tech stars shared behind the scenes’ stories & experiences and between the lines’ thoughts &
Marking the International Women’s Day on March 8th, 2021, Flow Accelerator has kicked off Female Entrepreneurship Breakfasts 2021 to deliver a collaborative, sustainable, and creative environment for Palestinian aspiring females to be part of personal and professional acceleration journey through two pillars of networking: “LearnZilla” and “Females in the lead” for the ultimate goals of gearing up with the growing digitalization in the world and creating an extra resource library.
“LearnZilla” aims to equip female entrepreneurs with the needed trending skills that fill major gaps & challenges that are facing in their careers, ventures and ideas due to the digital transformation forced by COVID-19,
GROW project launches the “Renewable Energy Innovation Fund” to address energy challenges in the Agribusiness Sector in cooperation with Flow Accelerator and the Palestine Techno Park
The Generating Revenue Opportunities for Women and Female Youth (GROW) Project, implemented by Cowater International, funded by the Government of Canada, and in cooperation with the Ministry of National Economy and the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority (PENRA), aims to enhance economic empowerment and increase prosperity for low-income women and youth in the West Bank. In collaboration with GROW, Flow Accelerator (Flow) and Palestine Techno Park (PTP) recently launched the “Renewable Energy Innovation Fund” to serve the agribusiness sector.
In partnership with Gaza Sky Geeks, Amrit Dhir – Head of Startups Connections at Google for Startups- visited Flow for a multi-activity day to meet entrepreneurs, founders and related stakeholders in the Palestinian Ecosystem.
Amrit met the teams of Flow, Gaza Sky Geeks, and Connect in an inspiring conversation about the current status of the Startup scene and its prospect, then met a group of Palestinian startups who have different challenges in fundraising, partnerships, and others in a round discussion under the theme “Pitching Partnering”.
And in a public community event, Amrit gave his talk “Learning from Moonshots” for a wider audience of entrepreneurs,
On November 25th, Ibtikar Fund announced its investment in Inggez, a mobile app offering on-demand access to gyms and fitness studios (classes), allowing people to get active without committing to one single membership.
Inggez, which is a graduate of the Flow Entrepreneurship Program in its first cycle and currently hosted at Flow office space, was founded by Ali Tazami and Subhi Mara’beh, who together have years of product management and development experience. With Ibtikar’s investment, Inggez will expand beyond Palestine to other Arab countries, starting with Egypt, where they have just soft-launched their app in Cairo.
As part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week in Palestine, Flow, in partnership with Gaza Sky Geek, hosted graduates of the Hebron Coding Academy in their event “Meet Khalili Coders in Ramallah”.
The event was highlighted by a talk given by Samer Asbah, Chief Technical Officer at SoukTel Digital Solutions on the development of his professional career; and Sameer Masri, CEO of PalExcel who gave valuable information and insights to use when applying for a job.
Experienced programmers and technical officials from startups such as Mashvisor, Inggez and Harri shared the graduate students with their ideas about presented projects.
In the third phase of the Youth Led Growth initiative implemented by Flow, FinTech bootcamps have been launched in Ramallah on November 16thand continued in Nablus and Hebron in the following weeks.
Professionals in the finance and banking industry, teachers, students and interested youth joined the bootcamps to learn more about entrepreneurship and its implication on their work.
The bootcamp’s structure included unlocking entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, the rationale behind some aspects of a startup business, and addressing the different types of FinTech companies, Insights on FinTech startups and an ideation workshop.
To bridge the gap between traditional methods of creating a business and creative startup innovations,
In continuation of Flow’s Youth Led Growth initiative which aims to bridge the gap between traditional methods of creating a business and creative startup innovations, Flow launched the second theme bootcamps in EdTech on October 26th in Ramallah and accordingly continued to be implemented in the following weeks in Nablus and Hebron.
Professionals in the education industry, teachers, students and interested youth joined the bootcamps to learn more about entrepreneurship and its implication on their work.
The bootcamp’s structure included unlocking entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, the rationale behind some aspects of a startup business, and addressing the different types of EdTech companies,
As the lack of access to finance remains the main obstacle for innovative companies in the MENA region, THE NEXT SOCIETY, through EBAN and BANC, introduced the 1st Investment Academy, a special 16-hour coaching event on “Preparing for due Diligence” on October 3rd-4th 2019 in Barcelona. The event took place on the premises of Foment del Treball in central Barcelona. And along with the participating startups, the Flow team has attended the event as part of the continuous capacity building and in aligning with the promotional partnership between Flow and the Next Society.
Flow has kicked off its Youth Led Growth initiative with MedTech Bootcamps in Ramallah on September 21st and continued in the following weeks in Nablus and Bethlehem. Professionals in the medicine industry, students and interested youth joined the bootcamps to learn more about entrepreneurship and its implication in their work.
The initiative aims to bridge the gap between traditional methods of creating a business and creative startup innovations, thus the bootcamp’s structure included Unlocking entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, the rationale behind some aspects of a startup business, and addressing the different types of MedTech companies, Insights on MedTech startups and an ideation workshop.
