While a lot of ventures seek funding to get off the ground, there are some surprising reasons why postponing or eliminating the need for external funds can be good for your business.

This event will focus on innovations with a social impact and is part of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Leaders in Innovation Fellowships programme community activities. The Leaders in Innovation Fellowships (LIF) programme brings together emerging leaders from across the globe who have an engineering-based innovation that has the potential to contribute to the social and economic development of their country through commercialisation.

The event will begin with an interactive presentation from Viren Lall, Managing Director of ChangeSchool, on how inventors and academic entrepreneurs can increase the value of their ventures and minimise the risk for investors by bootstrapping the early growth and securing early leads.

The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion with entrepreneurs and awardees of various Royal Academy of Engineering programmes. Awardees of LIF, the Enterprise Hub and the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation will share their own stories and experiences of bootstrapping their innovative businesses and why and how they did it.

Programme:

1.20pm – Zoom waiting room opens

1.30pm – Welcome and housekeeping

1.40pm – Interactive webinar: The key principles and considerations for bootstrapping a venture, Viren Lall

2.40pm – Audience question preparation

2.45pm – Panel discussion with entrepreneurs from Royal Academy of Engineering’s Leaders in Innovation Fellowship, Enterprise Hub, and Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation programmes and audience Q&A

3.25pm – Event wrap-up

3.30pm – Zoom event closes