ARUSEA Incubation Program
We increase the resilience of vulnerable South-East Asian urban residents to natural-human hazards by empowering social entrepreneurs to grow their business ideas.
Program Description
The Alliance for Resilient Urban South-East Asia (ARUSEA) Incubation Program aims to empower social entrepreneurs in South East Asia with projects aiming for the improvement of living conditions in their communities through the palliation of natural hazards’ effects in their region. Throughout the program, we will provide them with the professional knowledge and support needed in order to bring their projects to the next level and to accelerate their impact.
To ensure that our entrepreneurs’ business ideas are resilient to human-natural disasters and further enhance the living conditions of the community that they serve, you can become part of the ARUSEA Incubation Program community of experts, mentors and local industry leaders.
Being a mentor will benefit you in several ways. First, it will allow you to meet and connect with social entrepreneurs based on your interests and expertise, anytime, anywhere through our online platform. It will also give you the chance to expand your network by joining 560+ professionals that share your interests. Finally, it will enable you to develop your own skills as a mentor, exposing yourself to the latest innovation and entrepreneurship methodologies, while helping a startup business to grow.
Why participate?
Proven methodology
2300+ entrepreneurs from 89 countries have gone through the program!
Find your STARTUP
You’ll be partnered with an entrepreneur, who you will support throughout the whole program, so that his/her project grows in the right direction.
Global Network
Become a part of a supportive community of founders, mentors and investors from 70 countries that share resources and harness challenges together.
Experience Active Learning
The platform offers a learn-by-doing approach inspired by MIT's Disciplined Entrepreneurship, ensuring that the entrepreneurs create a validated business plan with your own inputs.
Anytime, Anywhere
Collaborate from anywhere at any time through our online platform; no barriers, limits, or excuses; just an internet connection.
Exclusive perks
Lifetime access to our online community, with expert masterclasses + more than 30K in discounts on HubSpot, Amazon WS, Google Suite, MailJet, IBM...
Are you the mentor we are looking for?
- You have a passion to help aspiring entrepreneurs
- You have a minimum of 5 years of post-academic professional experience
- You are ready to commit at least 1.5hrs per week during 4 months in order to ensure a quality mentorship and a productive business relationship.
- You have a certain familiarity with entrepreneurship, either by having worked with entrepreneurs in the past, launched a personal venture, or cultivated a passion for the topic.
- You speak English (Vietnamese and/or Filipino languages are a plus)
- You have a reliable internet connection and a computer/laptop that you can use regularly.
- You have commitment to finish the program.
Apply before
February 28th
And now… What?
Announcement of selected candidates
We will review all the applications and we will select between 10 and 15 mentors to support our 10 startups (5 from Hanoi, and 5 from Manila)
Attend to the onboarding session
If selected, you will be invited to an onboarding session to the program, along with a training on how to select your entrepreneur, how to use the incubation platform, its methodology and much more.
Online Incubation Program
Start the structured online incubation, with weekly check-ins with your entrepreneur and monthly networking activities and trainings.
The best mentoring platform
The Bridge for Billions methodology is based on the development of a business plan from scratch while the mentee is surrounded by a community of support; mentors, fellow entrepreneurs and our incubation team.
Our online platform allows entrepreneurs to experiment, research, and document their ideas step by step so that at the end of the program they can download their own business plan in PDF.
Ready to start?
Questions about the program?
Mentor applicants should show a passion for helping aspiring entrepreneurs and should be ready to commit in order to ensure quality mentorship and a productive business relationship. Mentors can always choose when to work with a project or not, but once a commitment is made, the time requirement is approximately 1.5 hrs per week for the duration of the entrepreneur’s incubation program (4 months).
You will need to be able to use a laptop or desktop computer (not tablet or smartphone) and preferably one of these browsers: Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox. We expect you to have a strong, reliable internet connection both for your online work on the platform and to participate in the mentors calls via video conference.
Bridge for Billions and the British Geological Survey have partnered with the goal of bringing high-quality entrepreneurial support to social entrepreneurs in Vietnam and the Philippines under the scope of the ARUSEA project.
We believe that only by providing this program at no cost, we are truly supporting you to unleash your potential and create your solution.
Our platform has been built to facilitate collaboration. Once you have access to the workspace of an entrepreneur you’ll be able to work together through comments on every aspect of their business plan, and you’ll also have access to your own team video room embedded in our platform, so that every week you can meet and talk as if you were in the same room, in just a few clicks. Apart from your private project workspace, you will have an online group with all of the participants from your cohort (mentors and entrepreneurs) to share articles and resources, ask questions, and overcome challenges together. Lastly, you’ll also have one-to-one messaging with your mentee(s) available, and each team can decide (or not) to use alternative communication channels such as phone, WhatsApp, email, Slack, etc.
Being a Bridge for Billions mentor is a 100% volunteer experience in which you’ll impact the life of an entrepreneur when it’s most needed and learn top-notch entrepreneurship methodologies.
As a mentor, you will guide your entrepreneur throughout our 4-month structured program. You will be the person who can understand the ins and outs of their business and, week after week, help them to validate their strategy for each critical stage, from targeting the right customers, to building a 3-year growth plan. You will support your entrepreneur through virtual collaboration on the platform as well as video chats once a week. We also encourage any connection or extra resource that you can share with them. Our program is made of 8 business tools:
- Value Proposition
- Competition Map
- Stakeholder Map
- Business Model & Marketing
- Pricing & Business Viability
- Financial Projections
- Impact Plan
- Growth Plan
These tools will guide you as well as the entrepreneur in effectively covering and validating each critical aspect of the business planning process.
Yes — once you have officially been accepted as a mentor, you will be invited to follow an onboarding training where we’ll explain our innovation-based entrepreneurship methodology and how our platform works. You’ll get the chance to meet other mentors, and of course we’ll be here to answer all of your questions! You will also join an online community of mentors to spark conversations, share extra resources, and keep learning!
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