Hidden within every crisis are a myriad of opportunities – opportunities to choose giving over self-serving, compassion over fear, to utilize our talents and skills in unique and practical ways. Crises create opportunities to solve acute problems and explore new business ideas and technologies that can accomplish all of the above. Those who chase opportunity amidst crises are our community’s visionaries, risk-takers, innovators and inventors. In short, our entrepreneurs.
While many large organizations and corporations are cutting budgets and hoarding resources in the wake of COVID-19, entrepreneurs are turning their focus towards building new products and multiplying impact. Entrepreneurs explore opportunities that answer market needs and provide benefit to themselves as well as society.
What’s unique about the COVID-19 crisis compared to other times of societal upset is that collaboration amongst entrepreneurs is more difficult than ever. Without the opportunity to network in person and find like-minded collaborators and mentors, it can be difficult to see solutions through to reality.
RIoT, an organization focused on economic development by supporting and accelerating startups in the modern data economy, is doing its part to enable collaboration, not just amongst socially separated entrepreneurs but the entire community by launching MISSION-R (aka: “Making Innovation and Startups Succeed In Our New Reality).
MISSION-R is RIoT’s moonshot goal response to COVID-19 designed to support collaboration and innovation around public and economic health in the aftermath of COVID-19. RIoT is calling on everyone (and we mean EVERYONE) to fight back against both the economic and health issues associated with COVID-19 by sharing ideas, nominating mentors, donating technology, giving access to data, joining a team, or sponsoring MISSION-R directly.
MISSION-R crowdsources ideas and talent from the community and builds teams around the best ideas. Those teams work through a proven startup accelerator curriculum with a budget to support prototyping and piloting their concepts. The expectation is to have teams that span both public health and economic stimulus and that range from crisis response and recovery today to prediction and prevention in the future.
MISSION-R voyagers (entrepreneurs) gain access to a global network of corporate partners, experienced founders, executives and experts and have a chance to compete for additional funding and prizes.
Want to learn more? RIoT is hosting a virtual info session this Thursday, April 2nd at 1:00pm bringing in experts in the medtech and economic development space to discuss the challenge and what they’re doing to support both our health and the economy in the current climate. Sign up and tune in to learn how you can do your part to support MISSION-R and help save the world!
Link to the event at:
ncriot.org
@NCRioT
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