DivInc — an Austin-based nonprofit that aims to remove barriers to help entrepreneurs, especially people of color and women — is launching a new accelerator in Houston that marries activism with innovation: DWeb for Social Impact.
The accelerator, which will begin in the fall, was made possible through DivInc’s partnership with Filecoin Foundation for Decentralized Web, a nonprofit that aims to educate the public about how the internet works and what a decentralized web means for business, governments and consumers. The accelerator is DivInc's first to focus on the blockchain/Web3 world and will help support social enterprise startups created by women and people of color.
These startups will primarily focus on DWeb and Web3 technologies such as blockchains, crypto, artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality and metaverses to increase access and equity across industry sectors in society. DivInc CEO Preston James told Houston Business Journal that the accelerator is an opportunity to help underrepresented innovators participate in the evolution early, giving them an opportunity to be at the forefront of solving society’s toughest challenges.
"This is an opportunity to really lead and provide opportunities for underrepresented entrepreneurs to really participate and take leadership roles early on with this new Web3 emerging technologies," James said.
Ten companies will be selected for the 12-week program, which will run from September through November. It will be held primarily at the Ion in Midtown, but some aspects will be virtual. The companies will participate in person the first week, last week and on demo day. Applications are now live and are due July 14.
Throughout the accelerator, FFDW will work with DivInc’s team on programming and leadership initiatives addressing challenges associated with certain demographics such as age, gender and race. Founders will have the ability to learn how to lead and drive with more visibility and solutions to eliminate inequities in the industry.
Participants in the accelerator will also learn how to build their businesses so that they have an opportunity to scale, create jobs with higher wages and generate revenue. FFDW will provide tools and resources such as mentorship, experts, a community and a database of tools to entrepreneurs advance existing products or create new ones.
James said he wants the accelerator to remove barriers associated with getting access to financial resources, mentors, talent pools and advisers. FFDW will work one-on-one with founders to address these issues.
“We're excited about the partnership because, I think, it’s going to take this deep web and social impact to another level,” James said.
Ultimately, the goal of the accelerator is to empower voices within the Black, Indigenous and people of color communities as well as have founders create successful enterprise companies, allowing for an impact that could be felt nationwide or globally.
James said an ideal participant for the accelerator would be a company that is at the pre-revenue or early-revenue stage with a minimal viable product. He said the company should also have a strong founding team with passion for their work.
“As a cohort, we want to lift each other up and drive each other forward,” James said. “We're looking for those characteristics from the team as well as the companies that are coming in.”
DivInc recently announced the cohort for its Clean Energy Tech Accelerator program in partnership with Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT).
