The D.C. tech program that got Google for Startups on board is ready to serve its first group of founders with disabilities.
2Gether-International, a District nonprofit that supports more than 300 entrepreneurs with disabilities, announced Wednesday it selected 16 startup founders for its first tech cohort — and a few are familiar faces in the D.C.-area innovation community.
“These founders are not only leaders in their own communities and startups, they are also leading the charge in highlighting disability as a source of innovation, strength and creativity,” 2Gether-International founder and CEO Diego Mariscal said in a statement.
From Greater Washington, participants include Samantha Scott of Rockville medical device startup JuneBrain Inc., a 2021 Fire Awards winner; Elizabeth Tikoyan of Fairfax health tech startup Healp; and Hua Wang of Alexandria telemedicine platform SmartBridge Health, one of our 2019 Startups of the Week.
They lead three of the 16 ventures tapped for this group, and were selected from a pool of nearly 200 applicants from nine U.S. states and five countries, according to 2Gether.
Bill Bellows, professor and co-director of American University’s Entrepreneurship Incubator, and Zuby Onwuta, founder and CEO of Austin, Texas-based Think and Zoom, are leading the group through the program — which started in early October for National Disability Awareness Month.
The accelerator involves workshops, boot camps and a speaker series focused on different areas of business, from management and marketing to financial projections and negotiations. It will close with a pitch competition for seed funding in December. 2GI itself is funded by government support, grants, individual donors and corporate sponsorships. Its budget has continued to double year over year, still at less than $1 million but projecting to exceed that in 2022, Mariscal said.
Google for Startups, the global tech giant’s entrepreneurship arm, will bring mentorship, expertise and coaching to the table in a bid to lead to “expanded support and programming for founders with disabilities globally” and “demonstrate the unique perspective these founders bring to making accessible solutions,” Hannah Frankl, its global product marketing manager, said in a statement.
With this accelerator, 2Gether aims to create a model for inclusive programming, Mariscal told us in August. The organization runs a variety of programs to support entrepreneurs with disabilities, including a recent women’s accelerator cohort, and plans to introduce a program for minority founders and others focused on certain geographic regions and industries, he said.
Mariscal, also 2Gether's “chief disabled officer,” started the nonprofit in 2012 after feeling inspired to change how society views disabilities. He himself has cerebral palsy and, after growing up in Monterrey, Mexico, went on to be involved with a number of disability advocacy initiatives. He said he soon realized people with disabilities are uniquely positioned to succeed as entrepreneurs.
And it’s a large market base: The U.S. counts more than 60 million adults with disabilities, 60% of whom are financially vulnerable, according to 2Gether.
