Regional Innovation Centre Supports Entrepreneurs with Mentorship

Innovation Guelph is a Regional Innovation Centre located in Guelph, Ontario that received an investment from the Government of Canada Women Entrepreneurship Strategy to support women entrepreneurs. This investment helped to broaden initiatives for gender equality and advancing the Canadian economy with the creation of the Rhyze Ventures Program. Pollinate Networks Inc. supports the mentoring program component of the Rhyze Ventures Program and has provided mentor matching for 60-65 women entrepreneurs per year for the last 3 years.

The Challenge

Rhyze Ventures is a custom-designed program created by women entrepreneurs, for women entrepreneurs. Pollinate has worked with the Innovation Guelph team to facilitate the virtual mentorship component of the program using the Cross-Pollinate AI™ matching algorithm, Pollinate mentoring education resources, and the Pollinate Platform.

Pollinate Approach:

Rhyze Ventures Program participants were recruited throughout Ontario, Canada.
The mentoring program intake was tailored to meet the unique needs of the entrepreneurial industry with three streams: small business, social enterprise, and scalable business.
Cross-Pollinate AI™ was tailored to meet the Rhyze Ventures specific goals of the program.
Pollinate created a custom platform group to house resources, discussions, and other program information.

Highlights

Program includes algorithm-based matching, Pollinate mentoring education resources, and program facilitation on the Pollinate Platform

170 mentoring groups over 3 years

Supported 240 entrepreneurs over 3 years

Results

Matched 240 entrepreneur organizations across 3 streams; small business, social enterprise, and scalable business over the course of 3 years.
Mentorship pairs were strategically matched using the Cross-Pollinate AI™ algorithm to match pairs based on their goals and unique backgrounds.
Cohort 4 launches May 2022.
From our historical Rhyze Ventures data, 87% of mentees felt they had positive knowledge gain and 94% of participants had a positive experience with their mentor.

Client Testimonials

“Pollinate Networks Inc is the perfect match maker, and bridges connections to provide women entrepreneurs with a supportive mentor to build their leadership and professional development skills. Mentors and mentees are carefully matched based on key elements such as leadership style, personality factors, and competency areas for mentoring. In addition, their team carefully crafted a platform to complement Rhyze Ventures' core program components: mentorship, project work, and education. Participants have access to eLearning resources, education module materials, discussion forums, and program updates 24/7.”

Adelaide Manley

Program Coordinator, Innovation Guelph

“Partnering with Pollinate Networks has been a wonderful experience. They have worked with us from the inception of our program to ensure our mentorship needs for 240 clients exceeded expectations. The detail and passion from their entire team has been seen time and time again as they go above and beyond to ensure the matches and project management is exemplary.”

Katherine Laycock

Program Manager, Innovation Guelph

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