Episodes
Friday Sep 22, 2017
S05 EP 02: Alice Bosley & Patricia Letayf, Five One Labs
Friday Sep 22, 2017
Friday Sep 22, 2017
Helping Refugees & Conflict-Affected Entrepreneurs Launch & Grow Their Businesses in the Middle East: Alice Bosley & Patricia Letayf of Five One Labs.
What do you think when you hear the word refugee? For Alice Bosley and Patricia Letayf, Co-Founders of Five One Labs, it makes them think of innovation, passion, creativity and grit. Since the war began in Syria in 2011, nearly five million Syrian refugees have been displaced across the Middle East and Europe. Five One Labs has launched a startup incubator in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to help some of the 250,000 Syrian refugees and over 1 million Iraqi refugees in the area rebuild their lives and livelihoods. The program is designed to provide training, mentorship, inclusive communities, and support to build businesses. The name “Five One” comes from the 1951 Refugee Convention that gives refugees the right to work. Their incubator will empower young men and women from displaced and host communities in starting scalable, innovative businesses - benefiting the entrepreneurs while also strengthening the local economy through training, mentorship and community building.
Five One Labs first cohort is scheduled to begin this October in Erbil, Iraq and they are crowdfunding with a matching grant from the Tent Foundation via Indiegogo https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/five-one-labs-startup-incubator-for-refugees-entrepreneurship#/
Friday Sep 08, 2017
S05 EP 01: Sherry Youssef Younes & Alejandro Crawford
Friday Sep 08, 2017
Friday Sep 08, 2017
The Democratization of Entrepreneurship: Sherry Youssef Younes & Alejandro Crawford
With a surge in the growth of the youth population worldwide there is, and will continue to be, a job shortage. The solution to this is self-employment or entrepreneurship but access to entrepreneurship is not keeping up and we may face a lost generation of job creators. Enter Sherry Youssef Younes and Alejandro Crawford both working to democratize entrepreneurship by using technology and breaking open access points that are typically closed to budding entrepreneurs outside of well-established networks.
Sherry Youssef Younes is a Youth, Workforce Development, ICT4Development and Women's Economic Empowerment Consultant with over 23 years experience in international economic development programme design, development and management. Alejandro Crawford’s mission is to expand access to the knowledge, space and alliance innovators require to bring new solutions to market and scale them. As a consultant, he is is managing director of Acceleration Group, where he works with the leaders of companies, governments, universities, investors, and NGOs to to harness the potential of disruptive leaders to remake our economy.