Flagship Program
While BIPOC Foundation offers comprehensive supports for businesses led by Black, Indigenous and People of Color, our highest impact on the tech sector comes from our BIPOC Founders Hub accelerator program (BFH), federally funded through Prairies Economic Development Canada in 2022 with a mandate to diversify Western Canada’s economy by facilitating training and investor connections for early-stage startups. On the widely-documented basis that diversity drives innovation, BFH’s catalyzation of diverse talent in the tech sector has led to positive economic results in the region.
Market Influence
The BFH program targets entrepreneurs in tech industries that are prioritized in Canada and increasingly emphasized in startup ecosystems worldwide (i.e. health, agriculture, climate, supply chain, artificial intelligence, etc.). As a non-profit, this modern approach allows for compatibility with government and maximizing resources through blending public-private investments while contemplating how to bolster hyper-relevant trends such as space, quantum, and exponential innovation in artificial intelligence.
We cultivate the right participation by using data to analyze industry gaps, educating the community to attract emergent innovators to the sector, identifying champions and first-movers, and helping startups who are not tech-driven to become as tech-enabled as possible for today’s business landscape.
Program Features
Delivered in partnership with creative consultancy ISM Creative, BFH leverages Design Thinking in the curriculum to adapt to a variety of founders known to have a range of unique needs. Combined with curated mentorship, we approach the program as an integral part of each startup’s team during three months per cohort, concluding with tailored awards and an open door policy for support through a continued Membership. This helps ensure not only the advancement, but more importantly the sustainability of each startup.
Program Outcomes
The scope of advancing a startup intentionally includes anything from providing idea stage founders with pieces of education fundamental to reaching their next steps, to providing revenue-generating startups with strategies critical to orienting them for growth. In any case, synthesizing their takeaways in their final showcases enables us to assess and connect them throughout BIPOC Foundation’s network accordingly, which ultimately serves as the most valuable award.
One-time financial or technological awards carry value, but becoming part of a sustained, growing, culturally relevant, and resourceful community is where the real impact gets unlocked on an ongoing basis. Overall, as the earliest business ideas represent the biggest opportunities with diversity as a catalyst, this model promotes a higher potential economy by providing underrepresented communities with access to information, know-how and networks through BIPOC Foundation.
Past, Present and Future of the Program
Starting with Black-led startups, BFH has advanced nearly 100 startups, expanding with more founders of color and gender diversity including an all female cohort. Bringing together government funding with co-investing startups, we continue ensuring a unique return on investment that realizes short-term program impact while we track long-term financial outcomes through our Membership. This dynamic has resonated with our ecosystem partners who we will continue evolving with by building modular capabilities into the program such as co-branded BFH workshops, coalition building for collective impact projects, and broader collaborations with values-aligned organizations.
Having maximized our tech impact at a regional scale, BFH has established precedent to contemplate how we can move the line nationally and across borders, and continues to strive to be a trend-setter in what it means to build an inclusive innovation economy.
