Keywords: education, incubation

Porto Digital Entrepreneurship Development Program helps entrepreneurs and business of all maturity levels. It starts inside the University, offering access to mentorships for future entrepreneurs, and goes all the way up to experienced entrepreneurs looking forward to growing international businesses. It also encompasses incubation, acceleration and entrepreneurial education.

Porto Digital is one of the largest techonology parks in Brazil and has just turned 15 years old. The park currently houses over 250 companies, most of them small enterprises that employ over 8,500 people. As the survival rate of companies installed in the park rose, it has also become a very competitive environment for the birth of new startups. Porto Digital Enterpreneurship Development Programs main goal is to raise the amount and quality of new enterprises, so they can be born already more competitive and with higher rates of growth, success and focus on global opportunities. Built on top of a 4-step approach, the program starts off showing college students real issues from global markets brought from partnerships with corporations. These students will be able to develop startups to solve these issues during their courses. To make this possible, Porto Digital has built ""Pitch, a co-working space inside the University that is totally connected to other entrepreneurship environments in the park. Inside this entrepreneurship and innovation space, Porto Digital offers its entrepreneurial education project: ""Mind The Bizz. This project will help students learn how to build a product/service out of an idea and market it in 10 weeks. Startups that show potential during the ""Mind The Bizz project will be incubated for a period of up to 18 months at one of the 3 incubator spaces offered by Porto Digital: Cais do Porto, Portomídia and Armazém da Criatividade. The incubation program offers entrepreneurial education for young talents on business, project management, human resources management and accounting. Startups that join our incubation programs can, at any time, apply to our acceleration program at Jump Brazil, Porto Digitals own accelerator space. The accelerators focus is on execution, business development, traction and growth stages. At last, Porto Digital also offers a program for companies that wish to immerse themselves in the business culture of Silicon Valley: ""Deep Dive. It is a 2-month program that takes entrepreneurs to the Valley and hosts networking events, business meetings, mentorship rounds and workshops.

There are hundreds of incubators and accelerators at technology parks spread all over the world. However, there are no cases of such a wide spectrum program that will help young entrepreneurs starting from their first contact with relevant market opportunities still during their graduation courses up to the insertion of their successful startups into global markets. The entrepreneurship development program of Porto Digital provides a wide protection and impulse network where entrepreneurs can come in at any stage (ideation, prototyping, incubation, acceleration or internationalization). If they do not succeed on one enterprise, they can always go back to the network and try again with a new venture. The focus is always on the development of the entrepreneur so he can mature more quickly and always offer the possibility of a new beginning.

The program has already supported more than eighty companies so far. These startups have either been incubated, accelerated or members of our education and internationalization projects. This fully integrated program has helped to fulfill the potential of supported companies, generating startups that are both more mature and attractive to customers and investors alike. It is possible to strongly detect the integrated programs impact on startups such as In Loco Media. In Loco Media is only a few years old and it is a good example of the programs full potential. It is a startup that was born inside college, during the graduation course of its founders. The company has been supported by our program since its inception. This successful startup has gone through our incubation program at Cais do Porto incubator where it was able to fully develop its breakthrough technology while its entrepreneurs gained business experience and entrepreneurial education through the mentorships, courses and workshops offered. After its graduation from the incubator, it gathered interest of a strategic investor. Currently, In Loco is a market leader in Brazil and is opening 2 offices and negotiating its Series B round in the US. As the program matures, cases such as In Locos are becoming increasingly more common at Porto Digital. We plan to support 100 more exponential growth companies in the next 2 years.

The main beneficiaries are entrepreneurs at the Park: those that are still discovering themselves as entrepreneurs inside college or beginning their entrepreneurial journeys, those that have already had some entrepreneurial experience but have not succeeded so far and those that already have successful local companies willing to go global.

The program is managed by Porto Digital entrepreneurship team. The team is comprised of: business analysts, mentors, project managers, sales specialists, growth strategists, event producers, futurists, developers, designers, international liaisons, marketing gurus, investment consultants, lawyers and accountants that work on all projects that are part of this program.