PRESS RELEASE – Founder Institute Addis Ababa (FI.co), the local chapter of the world’s largest pre-seed accelerator, announced today that its 2020 program will take place 100% online, allowing anyone across EMEA to participate in the program from the comfort of home.
Any aspiring entrepreneur or team interested in building a company with some of Addis Ababa’s top startup mentors is invited to apply or attend a free online startup event. “If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that traveling somewhere to meet in person is not as important as we thought,” says Adeo Ressi, CEO of the Founder Institute.
“Making our 2020 programs online not only makes the program safer, it also allows us to help entrepreneurs in new regions where we’ve never had a physical presence. No matter where you are located in EMEA, you can now work with our amazing team and mentors in Addis Ababa to build a future-proof business.”
In the Founder Institute Addis Ababa, entrepreneurs can follow a structured and focused process to get to traction and funding, with constant input and feedback from seasoned entrepreneurs and investors every step of the way. To help as many entrepreneurs as possible in EMEA, the Founder Institute Addis Ababa has also reduced the Course Fee to the program, released internal technology for founders to book Virtual Office Hours with mentors in the FI Network, and created weekly AMAs (“Ask Me Anything”) events for enrolled founders with the Silicon Valley Founder Institute Headquarters Team.
“This is the best time in history to build a digital business,” says Jonathan Greechan, Co-Founder of the Founder Institute. “When customer needs change quickly, as they are now, entrepreneurs are uniquely equipped to move fast and build new solutions while the big companies reorganize and narrow their focus. This is why many of the companies that defined the last decade in startups, such as Airbnb, Uber, Cloudflare, Udemy, Square, and Venmo, were formed during the last economic downturn. The companies being formed and getting their initial traction now will be the ones that define the 2020s in tech.”