BEC

Name: BEC
Address: Birmingham, B1, GB
Telephone: +448000025801

Birmingham Enterprise Community (BEC) is a Midlands, UK based organisation supporting emerging entre

10/07/2024

🎂 5 YEARS OF THE FOWARD ACCELERATOR PROGRAMME 🥂

Today we celebrate 5 years since we launched FORWARD. Over the years we've taken on dozens of entrepreneurs and businesses through FORWARD from e-bikes, food & drink, art market places, a charity helping the homeless and even startup launching rockets into space. They've come from across the world and many have even ended up here with us in person in Birmingham. We are proud of our FORWARD alumni, many of whom we still keep in close touch with.

On the same day we announced FORWARD (middle picture), we also announced a major partnership with Alpha Works, so today also marks 5 years of calling Alpha Works our home. Its given our FORWARD founders a place to work, a place to come together and a place to find the support they need for their business. A huge thank you to Michael Bromfield & the whole Alpha + CEG team who have cared for us over the years and have enabled us to create phenomenal social impact.

Finally, a thank you to everyone else who has supported our FORWARD programme over the years - our mentors and session facilitators who have given their time and energy to help these awesome entrepreneurs to move forward.

Here is looking ahead to the future of FORWARD & whatever comes next!

04/07/2024

🗞 The West Midlands Social Economy comes together for the Social Economy Olympic Summit.

A huge thank you to everyone that came out this week to the summit at the Legacy Centre of Excellence. A room packed full of those who are doing incredible things here right in the West Midlands.

A special thanks to all our contributors including Mayor Richard Parker, Enterprise Nation Founder Emma Jones, WMCA Social Economy Lead Charles Rapson, hibretOne-CIC Founder & 'Mr Show Me the Money' himself Drew Currie, Davies Okeowo, David Alcock of Anthony Collins Solicitors, Kasim Choudhry of Initiative for Social Entrepreneurs, & Naomi Nash of TechWM.

Thank you also to the other Social Economy Programme Delivery Partners Aston University, Locality & School for Social Entrepreneurs. Of course an extra special thank you to our partner on this programme Enterprise Nation, especially Grace Nelson & Matthew Williams who have been such a joy to work with.

Finally, a thank you to every one of the social economy leaders & entrepreneurs in the room for everything they do to create positive impact and transform the lives of others in the West Midlands. You hold our communities together and its a pleasure to support you through this work.

NEXT STOP: Wolverhampton on 5th August for our next Social Economy Meetup - tell us you want to be there in the comments & we'll DM you with the signup link when its out!

12/06/2024

Our Start Your Growth Journey programme participants are steaming along towards the halfway point of this incredible journey and there is plenty still in store for them!

They've had the chance to hear from some incredible experts including Daniel Evans, Davies Okeowo, Lee Lam, Debbie Assinder and this week it was time for them to hear from the social enterprise queen of the West Midlands herself, Rosie Ginday MBE! A huge thank you to all the experts who have delivered so far for sharing some incredible tips & insight on growing a social economy organisation.

We are delivering this programme in partnership with Enterprise Nation on behalf of the West Midlands Combined Authority as part of a greater push to grow the region's social economy. These early stage social economy organisations are CICs, Charities, Co-ops and all sorts of not for personal profit organisations from across the West Midlands. Next up, they'll be taking a look at Business Models with Lee Lam.

05/06/2024

We'd like to say a huge congratulations to our 10 Female Founder Scholarship Winners! This takes us over 50 Female Founder Scholarships now awarded since this programme began.

Over the next 6 weeks, these female founders will received intensive support from the BEC Team & Mentors to help them launch their businesses from solid foundations. Keep an eye out for more insight on their progress!

They'll also be working alongside other Startup Sprint Participants as they all share together in the journey of starting a new business.

For those that missed out, don't worry - we'll be running our next Startup Sprint Programme a little later in the year!

14/05/2024

Calling all ideators, innovators, and game-changers! Whether you're starting from scratch or need direction to propel your business forward, our programme is tailor-made to tackle the toughest challenges of starting a business.

🚀 Crafted after our work with over 2,000 businesses and founders, our programme covers 6 essential pillars:
1️⃣ Understanding Customers
2️⃣ Entrepreneurial Mindset
3️⃣ Finance & Legals
4️⃣ Pitching
5️⃣ Business Model Building
6️⃣ MVP Building

Unlock exclusive benefits:
✅ 9 Virtual Sessions
✅ Access to a Thriving Community of Entrepreneurs
✅ Personalized One-to-One Mentoring
✅ Essential Templates, Tools, and Partner Resources
✅ Guidance to Further Support Services

Don't miss out! Applications close on May 24th, 2024, and the programme commences on June 3rd, 2024.

Ready to ignite your entrepreneurial journey? Learn more and apply now over on our website or right here: https://bit.ly/4ahuc0L

👩‍💼 Female Founders - We're offering 10 fully funded scholarships. Simply indicate your interest in the scholarship during your application and share why you deserve it.

08/03/2024

Happy International Women's Day!

We could talk about some of the awesome women we've had the pleasure to work with both in terms of our entrepreneurs and also mentors but we thought we'd focus on something a little more action orientated today...

We are proud to say that we are relaunching our Startup Sprint Programme including our Female Founder Scholarships! These scholarships have helped support women in the past to get the support they need to help start their business learning from experts and tapping into all the resources we have at BEC so we are excited to be able to offer them once again.

Full applications will open in early April but we are now accepting expressions of interest from today with those completing the form getting priority access to the full application ahead of public release. Winners of the scholarship will receive a fully funded place on our award winning Startup Sprint Programme which gives 6 weeks of guidance & mentoring to help you shape the foundations of your business.

Applications are welcome from any early stage or pre-start female founder from any location.

Register your interest here:
https://forms.monday.com/forms/eb8b906ddc7c8ed1508bfb4e22d4ee6b

04/03/2024

The BEC Team are hitting the road throughout March to speak & exhibit at a number of events and we can't wait to see you all. In particular, we'd like to highlight a couple of the public events which you can come and join us at - the Innovation & Funding Conference at STEAMHouse on 5th March & of course VentureFest WM on 21st March (which is one of the region's flagship events). See you all on the road 👋

12/02/2024

Many may know it as a popular holiday destination, but the Dominican Republic is a thriving economic hub creating an excellent gateway to the Americas for many UK & European countries. Over the past two decades, the Dominican Republic has consistently been one of the fastest growing economies in the LATAM/LATAC region. Furthermore, a growing talent pool, strong accessibility, central geographical location and favourable trade agreements have created exciting opportunities for businesses looking to invest into the country.

To help us understand more about what the Dominican Republic has to offer, we are very excited to be joined on this live stream by Miriam Stern Velázquez, who is the Director of Trade at the Embassy of the Dominican Republic in The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Miriam will tell us more about key sectors & opportunities as well as sharing where to get started with exploring the market.

Join us live on LinkedIn, X or YouTube - 12pm (GMT) Wednesday 13th March 2024:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFKVQKbymlA

09/02/2024

We've had incredible interest in the Start Your Growth Journey already with half the places filled in the first week alone but there are still plenty and places and plenty of time to apply for this support!

We've partnered with our friends at Enterprise Nation to help deliver this programme on behalf of West Midlands Combined Authority!

Fully funded support for early stage social economy organisations in the West Midlands available including expert-led workshops, mentoring, networking & growth opportunities, and £2k grant funding too.

Check out more details and apply to let us take you on a journey to grow your organisation from April - here:
https://www.enterprisenation.com/west-midlands-start/

05/02/2024

What a week we had last week - thank you to everyone for coming along to our 5th birthday party! 🎉

It was incredible to be joined by BEC entrepreneurs past and present, alongside mentors, partners and friends to reflect on the last 5 years and to look ahead at what is to come. We were also delighted to be able to raise some funds & awareness for BEC alumni and our charity partner for the evening Standing Tall.

Thanks to three other BEC alumni Will Crawford for playing some wonderful background music, Alexios Zachariades-Layland for presenting the live stream & Mohammed Ali for photographing the evening. Finally thanks to the Tricorn Café team for looking after our guests with plenty of food & drink all evening.

All that is left to say is let's make the next 5 years even more impactful.

30/01/2024

Are you an early-stage social economy organisation in the ? Join a free programme by BEC & to develop the strong foundations you need to grow. Access training and a £2,000 grant!

Apply now - https://www.enterprisenation.com/west-midlands-start/

Funded by UK Government

Address

Birmingham
B1

Telephone

+448000025801

Website

http://www.birminghamenterprisecommunity.co.uk/

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Birmingham Enterprise Community

Birmingham Enterprise Community (BEC) is a Midlands, UK based organisation supporting emerging entrepreneurs and changemakers to launch and grow their ideas through a range of initiatives designed to help them build the skills and knowledge they need.