2016 ICT4D Conference

MicroMentor is a global online community that leverages the power of mentoring to help entrepreneurs thrive with help from volunteer business mentors. It's a social enterprise incubating within Mercy Corps, a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. Conceived in the FIELD program at the Aspen Institute, it was a solution aimed at democratizing access to social capital, the lack of which was identified as a significant cause for entrepreneurs' inability to succeed. In the U.S. (2014) MicroMentor added 2,100 jobs and $14 million in increased revenues. There are over 15,000 active mentor-mentee matches globally who are tackling the rising pressure for both local and global economies to grow and diversify to absorb the next generation of professionals into the labor market. Our model is rooted in providing decent work and economic growth opportunities for those most unlikely to access social capital - low-income, women, immigrant communities, and outside urban hubs. We believe in scaling access to mentoring and critical business know-how by leveraging partnerships - public, private and civil society. The discussion will present one such partnership with our corporate partner HPE who run their skills based employee volunteering program on their instance of this technology - HPE Advisors portal powered by MicroMentor. Hundreds of HPE employees are supporting non-profits, social entrepreneurs and small businesses around 90 countries. We want to share our story of how working together with partners, technology can help entrepreneurs and small businesses thrive.