思科如何支持今天和每天的企业家精神
By Stacey Faucett
包容性的未来是每个人都有通往经济机会的途径的未来。为此，我们必须为人们提供公平的知识，技能和资源，以支持自己及其家人的长期韧性和经济安全。其中很大一部分是投资于企业家精神。通过我们的社会投资，思科旨在支持微型和小型企业企业家以及创造就业机会并为社区发展和经济增长做出贡献的初创企业家。188bet网址怎么打不开
U.S. President ObamadesignatedNovember as National Entrepreneurship Month in 2011 to encourage more access to capital for entrepreneurs and expand mentorship opportunities, so everyone has the chance to develop innovative solutions that help people, communities, and the planet thrive.
我们分享了我们在企业家精神上的投资方式，不仅在美国，而且在全球范围内在全球范围内在教育，赋予经济能力和气候等影响领域。
缩小教育中的企业家差距
思科基金会教育投资组合受赠人Wethrive教育通过使来自低收入社区的年轻人成为企业家领导者，努力实现经济正义和封闭机会差距。Wethrive创始人Daquan Oliver在七岁时就开始了许多商业企业中的第一个，并很快意识到成为企业家是繁荣的途径。2014年，他开始Wethrive，将在线创业教育提供给像他这样的背景的年轻人。
思科教育投资组合和思科基金会的教育投资组合经理凯尔·桑顿（Kyle Thornton）分享说：“思科支持Wethrive努力扩大对青年，尤其是历史悠久的青少年获得企业家教育的机会。”
企业家培训计划是通过网站和移动应用程序提供的，青年也可以通过虚拟办公时间与志愿者导师联系。所有参与者都会获得种子资金和支持，以启动其公司。思科对Wethrive的第一笔赠款旨在帮助扩大其在美国的直接与年轻人（D2Y）平台的使用。Wethrive最近报道说，思科资金使他们能够访问另外496名学生，其中94％是有色人种，而85％的学生则是低收入。 Additionally, 94 percent of participating students created a company and earned a combined $15K in real revenue; 70 percent earned a net profit.
Daquan shared, “The social entrepreneurial skills youth gain — which they’re otherwise unlikely to learn during their K-12 years — are a catalyst for reversing economic injustices by preparing them to lead a wave of economic revitalization that is owned and controlled by their communities.”
Investing in impactful ideas, inclusively
Great ideas come from diverse lived experiences, backgrounds, and places. One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs building great ideas into businesses is access to capital, particularly among women and founders of color. Venture Capital (VC) is famously exclusive—most early-stage VCs select investments are made through “pattern recognition” and warm introductions. The results are clear, with more than 90 percent of VC deployed to male-led startups and only about three percent to Black, Latinx, or Indigenous founders.乡村首都（Vilcap）, a Cisco Foundation Economic Empowerment Portfolio grantee, unlocks capital for startups building solutions for emergent environmental, social, and economic challenges worldwide. To help mitigate implicit bias and improve the inclusiveness of investing, Cisco is funding the design and development of VilCap’sAbacaWeb应用程序，拥有16,000名企业家成员及成长。
Vilcap设计研究的一个关键见解是投资者对隐性偏见和改变意愿的认识。正如一位投资者所说：“我有动力增加我对代表性不足的创始人的投资数量，但无法使我的投资组合成为现实。”现在，Vilcap正在开发工具，以文化敏感和私人的方式从创始人那里收集身份和人口统计数据，并在投资者流程的每个阶段可视化创始人的多样性。借助更好的数据和工具，更有动力的投资者将能够诊断盲点并使有影响力的想法成为现实。
“Cisco is supporting VilCap’s work to increase investment in high potential start-ups led by women and people of color, and to strengthen the overall capacity of the ecosystem of entrepreneur support organizations that work with these start-ups,” explained Charu Adesnik, Executive Director of the Cisco Foundation and Director of Cisco’s Social Innovation Investments.
帮助各种各样的创业公司成功
以女性为主导的公司获得了风险资本资金的三分之一 - 由有色妇女领导的公司获得的收入甚至更少。Astia，思科基金会的经济授权投资组合受赠人转变了企业的资金方式 - 提供资本，联系和指导，以推动全球高度创新的女性领导的企业的增长。去年，阿斯蒂亚（Astia）成立了1亿美元的早期风险投资基金，以解决包括创立或执行职务的妇女的资金差异。阿斯蒂亚（Astia）首席执行官沙龙·沃斯梅克（Sharon Vosmek）分享道：“专注于创新经济中的解决方案的令人兴奋的事情是，企业家精神是创造更公平的经济的最快途径。”
阿斯蒂亚（Astia）正在努力通过全球投资者和致力于包容的顾问的生态系统来促进变革。该组织具有良好的记录，即投资者看到回报并进行额外的投资。思科提供了资金来帮助阿斯蒂亚开发一个支持技术的平台，以增强他们如何采购和屏幕公司申请投资并消除投资流程中的偏见。我们还支持他们的工作，将公司与投资者和网络联系起来，并建立新工具以跟踪ESG指标。这将使阿斯蒂亚能够增强其工作的规模和影响。
“Toward Cisco’s goal of powering an inclusive future for all, we are proud to support Astia,” Charu continued, “whose combination of capital, advice, and networks levels the playing field for high-growth potential, minority and women-led companies.”
Providing support to African entrepreneurs
Derived from the word harambee — Swahili for “working together towards a common purpose” — theHarambe企业家联盟（Harambe）由Okendo Lewis-Gayle于2008年成立。思科基金会的经济授权投资组合受赠人Harambe确定了有前途的非洲企业家，Harambeans，并为他们提供了获得培训，导师，资本和市场的访问权限，以及顾问网络。Harambe的核心是一个网络，它提供了一个为高等教育，创新，年轻的非洲企业家的企业家愿望提供支持的生态系统，这些志向率先着眼于非洲各地的高影响力商业和社会企业。
Harambe的支持生态系统具有乘数和变革性的效果 - 对于每个Harambean，他们的业务，他们雇用的人，社区和国家。哈兰比恩人鼓舞了一代非洲创新者，并开发了一个企业家生态系统，将思想转变为整个非洲的可扩展解决方案。他们独特的区别是，他们针对希望在非洲开展业务和社会企业的非洲企业家的支持，从内部改变和建立非洲的未来。
Cisco has provided capacity-building support to Harambe and has also established an investment fund to support promising Harambean businesses, likeMAX这是一家支持技术的公司，旨在使出行能力可访问，安全，可靠且可持续十亿非洲人。
Accelerating economic and social impact
思科基金会经济授权投资组合受赠人，所有人的企业家精神（Eforall），是一个创新的非营利组织，其使命是通过包容性企业家精神在全国范围内加速经济和社会的影响。他们的模型的力量很明显：Eforall高度多样化的明矾正在开始各种各样的当地企业，创造就业机会并刺激社区级的经济发展。188bet网址怎么打不开
Charu Adesnik shared, “Cisco is a proud supporter of EforAll in their work to replicate their model to other U.S. cities, scale to reach more people, and empower more aspiring entrepreneurs.”
EFORALL提供两个主要计划，免费提供有抱负的企业家：社区推销比赛和一年的加速器计划，其中包括密集的商业培训，专门的导师和进入扩展的专业网络。188bet网址怎么打不开程序提供英语和西班牙语。Eforall首席执行官Meralis Hood分享道：“我们为参与者在计划中的多样性感到自豪。通过积极向社区进行积极的宣传，我们发现那些经典的人为企业家的人数不足。我们给他们一个分享他们的业务想法，鼓励他们并将他们与专门的导师配对的空间，以帮助他们获得开展业务所需的支持。”
Providing founder-friendly financing for climate entrepreneurs
Enduring Planetis a Portland, Oregon-based fintech lending platform providing founder-friendly growth financing for climate tech startups. A Cisco Foundation Climate Impact Portfolio grantee, Enduring Planet invests broadly across small and midsized businesses (SMBs) and startups in the United States tackling the climate crisis, providing these companies with revenue-based financing and grant advances. This can include teams working to reduce emissions, remove carbon from the atmosphere, or support greater resilience and adaptation to the impacts of climate change. “Climate entrepreneurs need access to fast and founder-friendly capital,” says Enduring Planet co-founder Dimitry Gershenson.
According to Enduring Planet, roughly 80 percent of their investments have gone to startups with an underrepresented founder, a diverse team, or companies serving marginalized communities. Enduring Planet co-founder Erin Davis shared, “We understand the challenges that entrepreneurs face and aim to be true partners in their growth, fundraising, and development; offering fast, flexible financing is just one way we can help them.”
“Enduring Planet delivers to the climate sector an alternative to venture capital that is both inclusive, non-dilutive, and entrepreneur-friendly, and the Cisco Foundation is honored to support them in bringing this opportunity to the climate community,” says Jocelyn Matyas, Climate Impact Portfolio Manager for the Cisco Foundation. Enduring Planet offers climate startups and SMBs various financing options without collateral, personal guarantees, or dilution.
