MENTOR CAPITAL NETWORK 13TH ANNUAL GATHERING
Session Descriptions
Friday, September 30, 2016 at FHI Conference Center
9:45AM – Panel Discussion: Entreprenurial Ecosystems
While social entrepreneurs have been with us since we’ve been starting businesses, the “field” of organizations dedicated to supporting them is relatively new. Various programs: business plan competitions, university courses, incubators, accelerators, focused co-working spaces, and other related programs have all sprung up. What has their affect been on the individual entrepreneur? A discussion on our efforts to create an ecosystem that supports both the companies and the entrepreneurs who run them. Featuring entrepreneurs who have been supported, people who have designed and built programs to support entrepreneurs, and (mostly) individuals who have been on both sides of that divide.
1:45pm – Building Effective Partnerships, co-hosted with Conveners.org.
Many of the challenges members of the Mentor Capital Network community are trying to solve are systemic in nature. Entrepreneurs, Mentors, and Collaborators are all working to improve conditions in health, education, sanitation, energy, and more.
To effectively address these challenges organizations must form effective partnerships – but this is not always easy.
Effective partnerships require clear communication, establishing an understanding of why the partnership is valuable, how the deliverables will be achieved, and who will be responsible.
On August 9th, Conveners.org hosted a webinar to create a partnership questionnaire that could be used by the community to help them establish strong and lasting partnerships. They gathered template agreements and other resources to support organization working to create a positive impact to build the partnerships that will help them succeed.
On September 30th we invite you to participate in our Building Effective Partnerships Co-Hosted Session with Converners.org and Mentor Capital Network. At this session you will benefit from peer sharing of tips and best practices as well as receive template documents to support you in your work. This is a space for participants to share partnership success stories and challenges, and to learn from one another how to be more effective at engaging partners.
Paid members of Conveners.org are welcome to join the session at no charge, we also welcome guests registered for the Mentor Capital Network Annual Gathering.
3:15pm – Panel Discussion: Off-Grid Technologies and Refugees
230 million humans are on the move on any given day, and over 65 million qualify as refugees. While only 10% of the refugees live in formal camps, all refugees and migrants are living in conditions that can be considered base of the pyramid. Social entrepreneurs have a unique opportunity to rethink their market, and expand to providing their solutions to these growing populations.
4:30PM – The Continuum of Scaling: From BAD to BEST:
This interactive session gives impact investors and social entrepreneurs an invaluable heuristic framework for incorporating systems thinking up front, leading to dramatically improved risk mitigation and better financial & impact returns. The session doubles as an experience lab as TBL Alpha Advisory founder, Tami Kesselman, takes the room through deep dive examples of “they should have seen this coming,” and helps participants apply the framework to ensure their own endeavors avoid common pitfalls that otherwise undermine results. You don’t want to miss this!
Saturday, October 1, 2016 at Impact Hub DC
2:15pm – Prototyping Workshop with Tom Chi
Tom Chi is passionate about teaching the Prototype Thinking techniques he and his teams used to build Google Glass, Self-Driving Cars, Microsoft Outlook, and Yahoo Answers. Over the past 5 years, he has focused on teaching these techniques around the world in short workshops and seen it deeply transform individuals and teams. The ones that make it part of their practice have sped up key parts of their business by 10x or more. After teaching hundreds of entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and teams, he is working to make this material more widely available, affordable, and intensive. If you’re working toward building a more prosperous and connected world, and you’d be interested in unlocking radically new ways to solve your toughest problems in life in business, this is the workshop to take.