The Asfari Foundation & Bloom have teamed up to bring you the Asfari Challenge for Social Innovation (ACSI).

WHO?

ACSI supports scalable youth led education and life long learning initiatives in Lebanon. For-profit social enterprises, non-profit organizations, or initiatives that are not yet registered are all eligible to apply.

WHY?

The purpose of ACSI is to build an engaged, active, supportive community of social entrepreneurs in Lebanon and MENA for the goals of economic development and social change led by youth. For a deeper look at what motivates us, click here.

HOW?

We leverage proven world-class training and support methods, along with the Bloom platform, to provide high impact training and mentoring to teams, wherever they are.

WHAT?

ACSI is a 4 month virtual accelerator (April-July 2020) where selected early and prototype stage teams will receive intense training and mentorship support, financial support (between £2500 and £6000), and connections to other supporters and opportunities to maximize impact of each initiative.

More details, including team eligibility, are available in the following short presentation:

The Timeline

Jan-Feb 2020: Open House Period

We will be hosting a series of workshops and open question and answer sessions with the team.

March 8: Deadline to Apply

The program will be delivered 100% online, so it’s accessible to teams anywhere and everywhere across Lebanon and beyond.

Mar 19-30: Online Sprint

Intensive one week training and mentoring program focused on helping the teams address key challenges and potential growth and impact factors, plus leveraging team/project strengths.

April-July: Accelerator

Over 4 months, we’ll give you personalized training, mentorship, and support to help your project grow, ending with an Online Demo Day to help match teams with great next-stage opportunities.

What previous program participants said

Thank you Bloom team, my project went a long way. In the beginning, it was an abstract idea. Now it’s grounded in the user’s needs and problems, and it is very tangible now.
Hiba, first-time young entrepreneur

This program has been a big help for me. Something I never told anyone about is my fear of public speaking […] I never thought I could improve that much from an online program.
Alaa, early-stage founder

I didn’t just progress 1% every day, I probably progressed like 50% every day. I got better as a person in different aspects. My business model also improved a lot.
Rida, first-time founder