Procurement Options for a Diversity Pre-Accelerator Program

Project goals

The NSW Government is committed to expanding diversity in the innovation ecosystem by supporting founders from underrepresented groups. Research has consistently shown that investing in diversity yields significant benefits for both society and the economy.

Investment NSW is proposing to deliver a Diversity Pre-Accelerator Program that will offer training and mentoring to help participants refine their ideas, grow their businesses, seek investment, and prepare to apply to an accelerator program.

The program will be designed to be accessible, inclusive, and intersectional, ensuring that it meets the specific needs of the participants it aims to support.

Investment NSW seeks to capture insights and solutions from the market to leverage subject matter expertise, understand service providers in the market and ensure the program is fit-for-purpose.

Scope

Investment NSW is seeking Expressions of Interest from service providers and subject matter experts within the diversity and innovation sectors to consider how the Diversity Pre-Accelerator Program could deliver tailored support to women, culturally and linguistically diverse individuals, First Nations people, and people with disabilities in NSW.

Respondents are encouraged to leverage their expertise to propose innovative options and solutions that best address the needs of their target market. Flexibility in program design and delivery is essential to effectively support the diverse participant base.

In delivering the Diversity Pre-Accelerators Program, Investment NSW endeavours to achieve the following outcomes:

•  Fairer allocation of government support to all founders of innovation-intensive businesses.
•  Improved participation from diverse founders in all NSW government supported programs for innovation-intensive businesses.

This can be achieved by:

•  Reducing systemic barriers for diverse founders to access knowledge, networks and investment opportunities to build innovation-intensive business
•  Creating a pipeline of diverse founders competitively positioned to access later stage funding and ecosystem services.

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