Apply Now: Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) Program DRC 2024

The Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) provides enterprising women with the knowledge, networks, and access they require to start and scale successful businesses.

AWE employs a hybrid model that combines the online platform DreamBuilder (created by a collaboration between Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management and the global copper mining company Freeport-McMoRan) with in-person mentoring and facilitation.

Through AWE, participants learn core business skills, then get together as a class to discuss the material with experienced implementers, local mentors, and U.S. Exchange Alumni. Partnerships with local NGOs, universities, and chambers of commerce offer women the opportunity to amplify their newly learned business skills and network with other businesspeople through speed mentoring and entrepreneurship fairs.

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Academy for Women Entrepreneurs Program Goals

Provide resources for women to engage in U.S-style online education with guided facilitation and localization from local women business leaders.
Foster networks that support participants’ access to peer-to-peer mentorship, business partners, and scaling opportunities with businesses in the region and in the United States.
Provide access to a wide range of opportunities tailored to women’s economic empowerment to expand the effects of participation.

Academy for Women Entrepreneurs Benefits

Successful participants will gain access to seed capital (specific to winners of the business plan competition) as well as further training opportunities at Harvard Business School in the United States and South Africa.