Applications are now open for the ENTIRE Unreasonable Institute to be held in Boulder, Colorado, from June 12th – July 25th, 2012. The institute aims at equipping the selected entrepreneurs worldwide with the mentorship, capital, and network enabling them to find solutions to solve critical issues faced by the world.
The institute brings 25 entrepreneurs each year from all over the world to provide them with the training and build long-term relationships with 50 world-class mentors, ranging from the co-founder of Google.org, to the CTO of HP, to an entrepreneur who’s enabled over 19 million farmers to move out of poverty. In the process, they also form relationships and build their businesses with 20 investment funds, receive legal advice & design consulting, and pitch to hundreds of potential investors and partners.
During this six-week institute, everyone, including visiting mentors and capital partners, lives under the same roof and helps build their ventures together.
Eligibility
For the year 2012, institute will be working only with for-profit, early stage ventures tackling social and environmental problems. Aside from being fueled by a drive to effectively addresses a social or environmental problem, an Unreasonable Venture must have a full-time team of at least 2 people, have completed a prototype or pilot, be able to prove that they have meaningfully engaged with their customers, and be highly-scalable (capable of reaching at least 1 million people). It also overwhelmingly prefers organizations that can demonstrate their value to their customers by having generated at least $1 in revenue through the sale of their core product or service.
Why only for-profit ventures are being accepted?
While in the past the institute has worked with both non-profits and for-profits, they’ll be testing only for-profit ventures to the 2012 institute. This decision has been taken for three reasons. Firstly, it has been observed that for-profit ventures have benefited more from the Unreasonable experience on the whole, as the mentors and capital sources that are brought to the Unreasonable Institute are more focused on for-profit ventures. Second, they believe they’ll be able to concentrate their efforts on serving one type of entrepreneur enabling them to provide greater value for the Fellows. Thirdly and most important reason is the experimentation.
What the fellows will get?
Based on weekly targets established by top mentors and investment funds, as an Unreasonable Fellow, you will walk out of the 2012 Institute with:
- An ability to communicate clearly & compellingly
- An executable, three-year timeline for reaching customer acquisition goals.
- A defendable and scalable business model
- Relationships with at least 2 board members, long-term advisors or investors from our 50 Mentors and 20 Capital Partners
- The ability to assemble & lead a world-class team.
- A simple mechanism to assess, enhance & scale your impact.
After 5 weeks of intensive mentor-driven acceleration, the Unreasonable Fellows will have the chance to put all they’ve learned and achieved to the test. They will showcase their ventures at the culminating Unreasonable Climax (see Climax page from 2011 here), in front of hundreds of attendees including a specific pitch event for about 100 potential funders.
Expenses Covered
All the expenses incurred during the six-weeks of Unreasonable Institute are covered. Your food, housing, and travel for Institute-related events, is completely covered by the funds you raise on the Finalist Marketplace. (Note: you will have to cover your airfare to the Unreasonable Institute and any visa costs you may incur. If you need assistance with these costs, you may contact the institute and they may be able to help you).
Last date for submission of applications is November 10, 2011.
For more information, visit this link.
