Mentoring Program will be on hand to help initiatives selected by the ESA (Autism-Focused Social Entrepreneurship) program
This September, Insper’s Center for Entrepreneurship (CEMP) began to support the Autism-Focused Social Entrepreneurship (ESA, for its acronym in Portuguese) initiative. Its developer is Francisco Paiva Júnior, a former student in the Entrepreneurship in Action (EMPAC) Executive Education course at Insper. Francisco is the founder of Revista Autismo (Autism Magazine) and runs a social network dedicated to autism-related topics. It is Tismoo.me, a project he presented in his EMPAC’s final pitch.
“CEMP’s strategic cornerstone is to be a hub of productive connections for the Insper community. Thus, we opened another initiative to fulfill our role in the ecosystem, connecting people with the purpose of developing projects that can transform the reality around us”, points out Víctor Macul, coordinator of CEMP.
According to Francisco, the Autism-Focused Social Entrepreneurship (ESA) is a program to stimulate social impact entrepreneurship towards generating positive transformations for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (TEA, for its acronym in Portuguese) and the entire community. ESA will work with entrepreneurs and startups that are innovative, develop high-impact solutions, and solve real problems through the use of technology, promoting initiatives that seek to solve the main issues related to autism. It will include entrepreneurial initiatives from autistic people.
“Thus, we seek to build a better, fairer, more inclusive future, not only with more diversity but also more neurodiversity,” Francisco observes. “Having Insper as a partner not only gives the program important weight and relevance but also guarantees to the participants mentoring of high quality in the market and extremely high-quality support,” he adds.
CEMP’s Mentoring Program has the support of more than 130 mentors active in its network, who will be at the disposal of the entrepreneurs selected by ESA. After an initial diagnosis of the projects, the ESA team will be able to request a mentoring from CEMP. Mentors can share experiences, knowledge, and skills throughout the different stages of the entrepreneur journey.
“By supporting this new initiative, we hope to contribute to the maturation of social entrepreneurship projects focused on autism and, with this, assist in the development of solutions that can benefit everyone involved in this cause,” Víctor comments.
