It’s been exactly two years since the launch of the Savvy Global Fellowship Program for Aspiring and Early-Stage Entrepreneurs. So far, the program has accepted, trained, and supported over 7,500 Fellows from 156 countries.
These Fellows were selected from over 90,000 applications and according to a post shared by the organization, “[they] have demonstrated their zeal to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems using innovative and sustainable models.”
The organization noted that it measures its impact every year and publishes an impact report on how it equips young entrepreneurs to address local problems in their communities. Today, Savvy has become a community of over 8,500 changemakers, which includes the 1,041 members of the Savvy mentorship team, who according to Savvy, “are experienced entrepreneurs with post-revenue businesses — volunteering with Savvy because they want to put their fingers on the pulse of the younger generation of entrepreneurs.”
Available in 111 languages, the Savvy program has helped 7,511 passionate young individuals start 2,513 innovative and sustainable impact-driven businesses by providing them with the knowledge, skills, tools, resources, support, and community to do so. These businesses now employ over 4,000 more individuals, and the organization believes that it is “mitigating global unemployment, which has been broadened by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“In this second year of operation, we moved the Savvy e-learning platform from shared hosting to a high-powered dedicated server to improve its stability and up-time. We’ve provided data bundles to 28 Savvy Fellows from low-income communities. These data bundles helped them to participate in and complete the Savvy program. And through the Savvy Prize, we provided equity-free funding and support worth $4,450 to 4 Savvy participants with the most innovative business ideas and execution strategies.
Finally, we expanded our 22-week entrepreneurial training curriculum to include 10 Product Design modules — taking the entire learning duration on Savvy to 32 weeks. These were possible using funding from the Roddenberry Foundation, the International Telecommunications Union, and the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation.
Now, we are focused on achieving more milestones. We are working to secure a partnership with a state-owned organization in Africa, to help at least 300 young individuals build sustainable businesses. We will also be facilitating weekly online classes via Zoom, to be given by renowned entrepreneurs from diverse regions, who will volunteer to teach our Fellows from their vast experience.”
The Savvy 2022 Impact Assessment Report can be found here.
