DAVAO CITY – University students in the Davao region who are eyeing to establish their own startup business are encouraged to sign up for a free three-month intensive entrepreneurship and technopreneurship coaching program of the Davao-based business incubator Upgrade Innolab (Upgrade).
Rob Gumba, Upgrade Innolab communications and marketing head, said that the InnoVersity Business Leaders Program, implemented under the Innovation and Development Accelerators Consortium for Startups (IDEAS Davao) in the Davao region, hopes to help students develop “their business acumen towards building their dream startups.”
Registration is ongoing and will end on March 31.
He said that the InnoVersity Business Leaders Program, which will start from April to June 2023, is an ideation-to-validation program where students will be taught about the fundamentals of starting and running a scalable enterprise, refine their startups ideas, and validate their markets to see its potential for launch.
The program includes, among others, a series of learning sessions on entrepreneurial mindset, technopreneurship, design thinking, market research and validation, business model canvas and finance, and a deep mentoring session.
He added that that they welcome participants in education and edtech, agriculture, sustainability, smart industries, and other fields.
Gumba added that they hope to have around 50 startup teams, with five members for each team, for the learning sessions.
At least 10 teams will be picked for deep mentoring and incubation with partner technology business incubators (TBIs) in the city at the end of the program, he said.
He said that TBIs may assist and connect their incubates to potential investors or co-write proposals for possible funding.
“There is usually no direct funding or investments when startups undergo business incubation programs from the TBIs. The amount of seed fund that the startups may get, if ever there are indeed investors which is rare for early-stage startups, depends on many factors – valuation, needs, due diligence,” he said.
In a press briefer, InnoVersity Business Leaders Program is designed to spur the interest of participants “in entrepreneurship and technopreneurship as a catalyst for social impact, mainstream a culture of innovation in addressing social problems, and promote technopreneurship as an alternative career pathway for the youth.”
Topics include Psychology of Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Development Goals and Impact Business, Design Thinking, Design Sprint, Team Work and Dynamics, Technology Design, Business Model Canvas and Development, Market Validation, Go-To-Market Strategy, Finance 101, and Pitching, it said.
It added that Upgrade has partnered with the Singapore-based youth-focused startup accelerator Reactor School, Malaysia-based business accelerator E3 Entrepreneurs Hub, and universities in Davao region through IDEAS Davao.