Over the past decade, social entrepreneurship has been the talk of town. How can we do well and do good? Entrepreneurship has deep roots in Hong Kong, and the emergence of social entrepreneurship allows smart and passionate entrepreneurs to tackle some of Hong Kong’s most challenging social and environmental issues. Some of these challenges include Hong Kong’s ageing population, waste management given that all landfills will reach maximum capacity by 2018, and managing air pollution.
For social entrepreneurs, i2i may be your new best friend! i2i, an accelerator run by SOW Asia and funded by JP Morgan, accelerates social businesses with a focus on social and environmental impact. The 3-month structured program (free of charge) will recruit up to 6 companies per cohort, where each cohort will focus on a specific issue such as environment, elderly care and health. The first cohort will kick-off in September 2015 and will focus on environmental issues.
The i2i program provides focused consultancy support, mentoring and access to SOW Asia’s network to help improve and scale their business. It ends in a pitch night, where candidates get the chance to raise investment from various impact and angel investors. Companies like Insight Robotics and Protei are some of the examples of the environmentally focused social enterprises in the previous i2i cohorts.
Applications for the first cohort close on August 29. Apply for the program here!
