Bridge for Billions Year in Review 2021

In 2021, you bet on democratizing access to entrepreneurship globally with us. In the same year, we increased our impact by 60%, reaching +3350 entrepreneurs in 93 countries. Here’s what we made possible together.

950 new entrepreneurs incubated their projects with us, increasing our impact by 60% since 2020.

We co-created 38 new programs with B2B partners who share our purpose.

We implemented programs in a vast number of countries across North and Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia, helping local entrepreneurs build solutions to problems that matter the most.

We kept our promise to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with over two thirds of our programs supporting minority-led startups.

We boosted job creation, reaching an average of 5 jobs created per team during the 2 years following their incubation.

We supported entrepreneurs building  innovative solutions for the betterment of society in sectors such as MedTech, Reforestation, Youth Education, Agriculture, HighTech, Health and Wellbeing, Food and beverage, Sustainable Transportation and many more. 

All-time Impact

It’s not all about 2021 – since 2015 we’ve been using entrepreneurship as a vehicle to reactivate the economy through job creation, connect employees with their purpose, make innovation for all a reality and support entrepreneurs creating solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. After 7 years in business, we’re proud to still be shaking up the ecosystem with positive impact. 

The impact of our programs to this day

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Entrepreneurs
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Supported Ventures
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Volunteer Mentors
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Total programs run
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Countries
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female founders
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new jobs were created on average per team in the 2 years following their program
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of entrepreneurs in business after 1 year
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USD Average funding received by founders

Our Programs 2021

In 2021, we were pleased to welcome on board new organizations to build programs with us, as well as continue collaborating with our existing partners. Here are some of the unique programs we co-created.

Al Borg Medtech Accelerator

The Al Borg MedTech Accelerator program is an initiative of Elaj Group and Bridge for Billions, to connect with ready-to-invest or pilot-ready startups in the MedTech sector to achieve their mission of spreading innovative high-quality healthcare services at affordable prices.

CAA Incubation Program

CAA built an inclusive entrepreneurship program to support entrepreneurs in Colombia who want to develop business ideas with technological components to support social and economic development in the country.

Social Innovation Incubator 2021

This program by United Way Metropolitan Dallas aims to address historical opportunity and resource gaps as well as systemic racial and gender inequities in the social innovation sector in North Texas. The program was specifically built to support early-stage social ventures led and staffed by women and people of color who are working to implement new and creative solutions to pressing problems facing North Texans in the areas of Education, Income, and Health.
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Programa de Incubación

An entrepreneurship program by Ciudad del Saber to scale their reach and promote the generation of startups in Panama. The objective of the program was to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem capable of growing at an accelerated pace and contributing dynamism to the country’s economy.

The Restoration Factory

An entrepreneurship program to achieve the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration goals by supporting entrepreneurs in the development of new purpose-driven forest businesses that ensure that restoration happens in a systematic way, born from an innovative way to do business, with the welfare of the ecosystem in mind.

IDEA App Program

As part of their economic development efforts, UNIDO launched a series of over 10 entrepreneurship programs in 15 different countries to support over 1000 entrepreneurs. The IDEA App program is one of the most ambitious entrepreneurship initiatives around the globe and will guide founders in developing innovative solutions in priority value chains for each country while also welcoming less-represented groups like youth and women into the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Visa Mentorship Program

Visa Inc. designed a corporate volunteering program where employees became mentors to founders from underrepresented groups creating small and micro-businesses. The objective of the program is to promote economic development and growth in collectives who normally wouldn’t have access to support and resources whilst providing an engaging mentorship opportunity for Visa Inc. employees.

Work for Yourself@50+

The AARP Foundation launched an entrepreneurship program to support adults over 50 from low-income backgrounds as they developed successful businesses with the objective to build a future without senior poverty.

Stories that Matter

We’re driven to keep growing by the entrepreneurs powering a new kind of innovation, generating solutions to better their communities and finding the most innovative ways to change the status quo. Here are some of their stories. 

Empowering minority groups 

We are Poderosas

Alejandra Ramos Gómez

Social Innovation Incubator, USA, a program to support social entrepreneurs in Texas
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

We are Poderosas​ is a bilingual self-empowerment and spoken word initiative for girls, focused on supporting immigrant communities who come from Spanish-speaking countries and who might not find support or programs in their mother tongue. The project supports girls’ socioemotional development by providing workshops on life skills, oracy, self-advocacy, and emotional literacy. This social initiative seeks to create self-empowered social agents in local communities to combat gender inequity. 

Entrepreneurship at any age

Revelations Life Sciences LLC

Juanita Singleton

Work for Yourself @50+, USA, a program to reduce senior poverty through entrepreneurship
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Juanita worked as a practitioner nurse for 30+ years specializing in gerontology, Alzheimer’s disease, and Lupus, and decided to start her venture, Revelations Life Sciences LLC, to create innovative, therapeutic products for the wellbeing of women at 60 years old, unable to handle the physical pressure of working on a hospital ward. Noticing the outdated nature of some products and practices, and with the surge of healthcare innovation Covid-19 has brought, she spotted an opportunity to structure and validate her business through the program and will be launching her first product, a fully-equipped kit for diabetics very soon.

Powering job creation

Goodness Green

Fatoumata Fall

IDEA App Senegal, a program to boost job creation and local innovation in the agricultural sector.
Economic Development Program

Forbes Top 30 Under 30 recipient Fatoumata is now on a mission to address food shortages and excessive importation in Africa by accelerating vegetable production through Hydroponics. Her research shows the impact of hydroponics on African vegetable growers could be huge: their lives and livelihoods would improve, with year-round activity and their revenues could double. The Goodness Green Team believes this will also be a practical solution to integrate thousands of young people into the agribusiness sector every year.

Creating opportunity for youth

Nerdy Punk

Tulio Tercero

Reactivamos Centro América, Honduras, a program to boost job creation and strengthen the Central American Ecosystem
Economic Development Program

Tulio Tercero founded Nerdy Punk after learning about the lack of educational tech content  for beginners in Honduras and across Latin America as well as the need for coders in the region. NerdyPunk is providing affordable tech education for kids and young adults in a way they can access it anywhere they are.

Innovation that Matters

HumanITCare

Núria Pastor and Unai Sanchez

Making More Health, an employee engagement program to power innovation in the HealthCare sector
Innovation Promotion program

A multidisciplinary team of developers, designers, product owners, healthcare professionals and business & marketing analysts with a mission to provide real-time, reliable, and quality health data to improve clinical outcomes. The team has grown by 12 members and raised €2,500,000 in Seed funding from the European Commission since participating in the Making More Health program supported by an expert mentor from Boehringer Ingelheim.

All of this is made possible by…

This is made possible by the support of our B2B partners and our common purpose to increase access to high quality entrepreneurship support and training around the globe. We’d like to extend a thank you to all those who continue to work with us, and are looking forward to what we’ll create together in 2022. 

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