Ukrainian Hub, a non-governmental organization supporting domestic entrepreneurship, together with CRDF Global and with the support of Concord Bank and Innovecs, conducted a training program for female founders of technological businesses, the Female Leadership Program.
The goal of the project is educational and financial support for innovative Ukrainian businesses founded by women.

The program is implemented in a hybrid format - online and offline. Thus, it made it possible to join the project to a greater number of participants from all over the country. A total of 50 women entrepreneurs took part in the offline course. The training took place in compliance with all sanitary norms and rules for holding group meetings in Innohub Space, with the support of Innovecs. Also, more than 40 participants joined the stream in the Slack program.

The educational program lasted from October 12 to 17, 2020 and consisted of two consecutive parts:
— a four-day Female Leadership Program business camp
— a two-day STEP bootcamp

During the business camp, the participants were taught by experts and mentors from Ukraine, Europe and the USA. Sessions were held in the following areas: management and work with finances, marketing and business development. A total of 18 experts and 9 mentors joined the program.

Participants in mentoring sessions

In order for the participants of the Female Leadership Program to be sufficiently prepared for the bootcamp and final pitches, the business camp program was built in a logical sequence.
In particular, the first day of the program consisted of ice-breakers, introductions and immersion in current management trends. The participants learned how to avoid and overcome crisis situations at work, why automation of business processes is important, and also talked about mutual understanding within the team.

"All people in the company must understand exactly what you do and what happens inside the company," said expert Victoria Prydatko, founder of the VP Team recruiting agency.

The second day was devoted to communications and marketing. Experts talked about the basics of direct marketing and why this element of work is important for business; researched the market and worked on creating a marketing strategy.

"Where to start building a PR strategy? With the right questions! — Orysya Khimyak, PR director at ReFace App, spoke about interaction with journalism and building strong communication. — PR is an extremely important element for creating trust in your product, for finding investors, customers and partners, and also directly affects your sales figures.

The third day was devoted to business development, product transformation, design thinking and innovation development, as well as defining the Ideal Customer Profile.

"Where does a new market opportunity or idea come from? — Out of a certain need, out of a problem, out of people's laziness. It comes from the thoughts of each of us. From the understanding of what humanity needs, ingenious products are born," said Oleksandr Akimenko, who told the participants of the program about the principles of design thinking.

On the fourth day, the participants studied financial management, learned about the possibilities of automating and updating reporting tools. A separate block was a lecture on fundraising: about the peculiarities of working with grants and cooperation with donors, about current business development support programs.

"In order to receive a grant, you must clearly understand how you plan to spend this money, for which products the funds will go. With whom and how will you fulfill the promises made to donors," Olesya Malyovana, an expert in grant management, curator and author of the Female Leadership Program, emphasized.

Olesya Malyovana, curator of the program 

During the two-day STEP bootcamp, mentors facilitated the participants and their development of personal projects, as well as prepared them for the final pitch, which determined the four winners who received the main prize from CRDF Global — funding for business development ($ 5000).

In particular, the winners of the prizes were:

In turn, the partner of the program — Concord Bank — provided a certificate for opening an annual account and carrying out operations under 0% payment for service to one more winner of the pitching — Oleksandra Gladyshevska, the founder of the service for easy insurance of pets against accidents SPOKK.

 Bootcamp participants and winners of the final pitch competition 

The program was initiated by the Ukrainian-American Coordination Council with the support of CRDF Global and implemented by the NGO "Ukrainian Hub".
More about the program: www.ukrainianhub.org/female_program

Press office of the Public Organization "Ukrainian Hub":
info@ukrainianhub.org
partners@ukrainianhub.org
+38 067 6 313 664

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