Hey friends, Mahmoud here 👋.
Welcome to the second issue of Sparko. If you didn’t catch the first opportunity, click here to read about and find some startup tools and news.
In this second issue we will be presenting 3 opportunities for the community.
We will be happy if you like, comment and share this issue with your friends.
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Let’s dive in!
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🚀 Opportunity #002 - Tatweer, Startup Entrepreneurship Program
Registration for the "Tatweer - Startup Entrepreneurship" Program Has Launched!
The "Development - Startup Business" program is the result of a partnership between the Moroccan Center for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship, MCISE and "Morocco for Small and Medium Enterprises" and is an integrated opportunity targeting innovative industrial or service projects with a strong added value.
This program aims to liberate the qualifications of project holders by helping them to embody them on the ground, enhancing the capabilities of their contribution to the emergence of Moroccan industrial and technological enterprises, and stimulating local industrialization.
This program propose founder or entrepreneurs an integrated offer to keep pace, which extends from the idea stage to the manufacturing stage through the various stages of incubation:
Pre-incubation: finding ideas for creative projects and supporting their structuring.
Incubation: Keeping pace with holders of emerging enterprise projects, transforming their ideas into viable projects, and accompanying them to the limits of the actual launch of their emerging enterprise.
📍 Local: Beni Mellal, Marrakesh and Fez - Morocco.
🔗 Registration link for anyone with or without a project idea:
🚀 Opportunity #003 - The British Embassy Rabat
The British Embassy Rabat is hiring a Political Assistant GradeA2 (L).
The successful candidate will provide political and administrative support to the Embassy’s External and Bilateral political team within Chancery. This will include administrative, protocol, secretarial and logistical tasks for the political team, the Deputy Head of Mission and, on occasion acting as the Ambassador’s Personal Assistant.
👉 Application deadline: 15 September 2021
👉 More information on the job position and how to apply is available here:
🚀 Opportunity #004 - B.I.S Grant 2021
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa B.I.S (Business. Idea. Startup) Grant awards $25,000 to Africans with innovative ideas, brilliant startups and growing businesses.
📅 Deadline: 24 September, 2021
📍 Location: Online
💰 Funding type: Award, Prize, Funding, Grant
🧑🤝🧑 Opportunity type: Accelerators, Incubators, Funding, Grants, Competitions for startups, Non-Degree Opportunities
💞 Eligibilities: age 18 - 24, 25 - 35, 36 - 60
Applicant must be above the age of 16 years and below 65 years.
🧑 Gender: Male, Female
🌐 Nationalities: Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia
Applicant must be a bona fide citizen of an African country.
💯 Specific requirements:
Have High School Degree.
Applicant must have at least completed secondary or high school education.
Have Startup/Project/NGO idea or running
This grant is for Africans with innovative ideas, brilliant startups and growing businesses.
💯 Other requirements:
Conferencing Tool
Applicant must have a close-by device to initiate a video conferencing call.
🧰 Integrity:
Applicants' applications should be filled with accurate information as the grants often verify applicant claims.
🎁 Benefits:
5,000 participants would be selected to receive a grant of $25,000 in cash and $10,000 in training.
💳 Costs: participation/program fees are free of charge (there are no application fees).
📃 Required Documents:
Essay questions
Financials: How the grant funds would really contribute to the growth of your idea, startup or business.
Team: Explain why you or your team (if any) is best equipped to execute your idea, startup or business.
📰 Interesting Reads
🌎 The Climate Connection Global Youth Letter Launch Event
Are you looking to learn more about what young people can do to tackle climate issues? The British Council is hosting The Climate Connection Global Youth Letter launch event on 9 September along with UKinItaly.
Register for free to join the launch from here.
💼 Leading The Charge In The Future Of Work
XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling will transform the future of work.
Here Dr. Monique Golden – Social Science Lead for the competition – brings us up to speed on the competition so far, as well as the next stages.
XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling is a $5 million dollar, 30-month competition to quickly reskill under-resourced workers for the digital revolution. American workers learn new skills via novel training solutions to obtain living wage jobs in growing industries. XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling is part of New Profit's broader Future of Work Grand Challenge, a collaborative, cross-sector effort that will help prepare 12 million Americans from disinvested communities for workforce success by 2025.
To learn more about XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling, visit rapidreskilling.xprize.org or email rapidreskilling@xprize.org.
💪 Bootstrappers
Andrew founder of MicroAcquire launched Bootstrappers.com on Product Hunt, the publication for bootstrapped startups.
Major media shouldn't be reserved for VC backed startups. There's 1000s of bootstrapped startups building really profitable businesses and that's amazing.
“Silicon Valley's narrative is changing” he said. Visit Bootstrappers.
🔥Products
💰 Micro Invest
Micro Invest is a platform where the product founder submits their MVPs and investors come to help them by providing guidance, support, & a micro investment to pay the founder 6 months salary.
Sheet Hacks - Polymer Search
Built for free with a spreadsheet and Polymer Search.
⚡️ 500 carefully-curated spreadsheet resources
📈 Level up your spreadsheet skills fast
🔍 Find exactly what you need with an in-depth interactive discovery experience.
🔖 Odin - Bookmarking & Productivity Tool
All your bookmarks in one place, nicely organized Sparkles.
Create folders, make them public, private or shared between friends and family.
Download Odin App
💎 Learnings
🐦 Framework for Constructing Engaging Tweets
Either you are a first-time founder, an entrepreneur or just looking for your next opportunity, using Twitter effectively is highly recommended. As I started months ago on Twitter, I realized that's the best platform to learn, develop and network in the world.
Constructing engaging tweets so you become someone worth following. It's about understanding your followers, building connections, making friends & having fun.
Would you like to learn about the frameworks for constructing engaging tweets?
Steal Andrew’s personal framework for constructing engaging tweets:
It'll give you a behind-the-scene look at how he developed content for Twitter.
What's inside:
✔️ 3 different approaches to use this framework.
✔️ 15 of my favorite tweets — breaking down key concepts & what I've learned.
✔️ Tweet formats that drive engagement.
✔️ Examples to help you generate content ideas.
⚒️ Tools For Your Next Startup
Sparko is a bi-weekly newsletter born to primarily help first-time founders and entrepreneurs to discover new opportunities & unlock collaborations across the world.
We cover entrepreneurship news, startups ecosystem markets and opportunities to help you boost your side project, your startup and your teams.