Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship Launches Incubator Program for Women Businesses
PITTSBURGH— Chatham University’s Center for Women Entrepreneurship (CWE) has launched IncubateHER: a free, competitive year-long business incubation program for early-stage women entrepreneurs with product or service-based businesses in the Pittsburgh region.
IncubateHER provides participants with industry-specific mentors, entrepreneurial education and training (through Chatham's Women's Business Center), a tailored growth curriculum, peer-to-peer mentoring through cohort meetups, and a year-long membership to the CWE for immersive networking opportunities. Through this membership, IncubateHER participants will also get free access to the Center’s Prototyping & Design Lab to use digital fabrication tools to ideate and create new products or expand their product lines. In addition, participants will receive a $1,000 grant at the successful completion of the program to help grow their businesses.
The program is limited to five participants in its pilot year. Applications are due by November 30th 2017 with interviews to be held in December. The program will start January 2018. Visit www.chatham.edu/cwe/incubateHer/ for more information and to apply.
IncubateHER is overseen by Nazli Saka, the Community and Student Engagement Manager at the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship. In addition to her degrees in law and education, Ms. Saka holds a Business Incubation Management Certificate, a premier credential for the staff of incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces, small business development centers, and other entrepreneurship programs.
Funding for IncubateHER provided by the PNC Foundation with additional support from Chatham alumnae donors and members of the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship.
About the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship
The Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Chatham University (Center) creates economic opportunities for women through entrepreneurial education and training, mentoring, and networking. Building on Chatham University’s tradition of educating women for 145 years, the Center has provided quality education and training for women entrepreneurs for over ten years. Current funding for The Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Chatham University has been provided by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, Google.org, and the PNC Foundation.
The Center is also the host of Chatham’s Women’s Business Center (CWBC), established on April 1, 2016, and funded in part by a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration to provide services geared specifically to women and underserved populations, minority entrepreneurs, and veterans throughout Western PA. CWBC offers aspiring and existing business owners free business counseling, training programs, technical support, and mentoring focused on business planning and financing, access to capital, federal contracting, and business expansion through international markets and exporting.