Innovation Pathway : Káits Social Innovation Incubator
In 2020 , Teach For Armenia launched the Káits Social Innovation Incubator – Armenia ’ s first-ever social innovation incubator dedicated to education . The goal of the initiative is developing innovative solutions to address challenges facing our nation ’ s education sector . It is a full stage incubator that supports participants from idea development to market entry over the course of four stages :
Inspire • Incubate • Accelerate • Scale
In order to provide our Alumni-Ambassadors with the opportunity to learn from external talent , we decided to open applications for the first cohort to all innovators who possess ideas that have the potential to transform the nation ’ s education sector . As with most of 2020 ’ s programming , Káits was initially planned to take place in person but due to COVID-19 all its activities were adapted to a virtual format .
Scan to Learn More : Káits Social Innovation Incubator .
In May , 120 people applied to join the Incubator , including 24 Alumni-Ambassadors , of which 73 were selected to participate in the first Inspire stage of the incubation program . Over the course of 16 weeks , participants formed 32 teams and worked collaboratively to develop ideas and plan prototypes . They learned about design thinking , lean canvas , social entrepreneurship , and were mentored by Teach For Armenia staff .
The Inspire stage culminated in a pitch competition on September 19th . Thirteen teams were selected to pitch their Minimum Viable Products ( MVPs ) to an audience of distinguished guests , Teach For Armenia staff , and a panel of judges . The judges included Vahagn Rapyan ( Chief Executive Officer at Seaside Startup Summit ), Nejdeh Hovhannisyan ( Assistant Director of the Open Center for Innovation Advancement at the American University of Armenia ), Sona Hovhannisyan ( Director of PicsArt University and former Director for Learning and Innovation at Teach For Armenia ), as well as Ashot Khudgaryan ( Co-founder and Director of Development at Beyond Learning Hub ). Ultimately , five teams were chosen as winners and awarded a total of approximately $ 49,000 to build and test their MVPs in the second Incubate stage . Eight Teach For Armenia Alumni- Ambassadors were among the five teams proceeding to the next phase .
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