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2020 - 2024IMPACT REPORT
1. From the FoundersTABLE OF CONTENTS2. Leadership Letter3. Beba Foundation at a Glance4. Activity Pillars5. Beba Foundation in Numbers6. Training - Key Activities and Partnerships8. Networking - Key Activities and Partnerships9. Other Key Activities and Partnerships10. Monthly Blog Posts11. Awards and Recognition13. Looking Into the Future345678-117. Mentoring - Key Activities and Partnerships12-1314-1718-20212223
We have established our foundation on the following three pillars to assistmainly innovative youth and aspiring women entrepreneurs to turn theirideas into applications, commercial products and/or services for globalmarkets.TRAININGWe believe that innovation and entrepreneurship can be learned andexecuted by disciplined training and education. We have developededucational and sustainable training programs tailored for young and womenentrepreneurs with limited access to educational opportunities. MENTORING & CAREER GUIDANCEAt Beba Foundation, we place great importance on mentorship. We stronglybelieve mentors with entrepreneurial expertise provide the best support foryoung and women entrepreneurs. We also specialize in Career GuidanceMentoring for entry, mid-career, senior level, and C-Suite professionals. Ourmentors come from a wide a spectrum of academics, professionals, andentrepreneurs who have multi-disciplinary experience that involve science,technology and business management. NETWORKING & BUSINESS IDEA COMPETITIONSWe know that networking is a must for the success of young and especiallyfemale innovators. Therefore, we bridge them with the right resources,individuals and institutions so that they gain the confidence to fulfill their fullpotential. Business idea competitions are a great way to do this in real timeand we run multiple such initiatives on a continuous basis.As you will see in the following pages we have come a long way since 2020,but we have a much longer journey in front of us.Umran Beba - Co-FounderProf. Ali Beba - Co-Founder From the Founders
Over the past five years, we have come a long way. Some of our keyinitiatives like The Greater Good Challenge, Million Women Mentors, and TheEntrepreneurship for Youth Program are making a significant and meaningfulimpact. We have been building a successful track record and laying thefoundations to build on as we go forward. Our focus will be on supportingyoung and women entrepreneurs in disadvantaged areas. As a not-for-profit family foundation, we strive to empower young andwomen entrepreneurs. With limited financial contributions from third partiesthus far, our resources are limited. We try to use them in a variety ofactivities, which fully meet our mission statement. We offer significant know-how and "sweat equity" in the programs we participate in. We believe thecombined experience we have at the foundation is the real added value webring to the table, and I personally am fully involved as a program manager inall of our initiatives. In other words, we do not just give out gifts, donations,scholarships, nor participate merely as a sponsor. The monetary contributionswe make usually are in the form of awards that go directly to the winningparticipants in pitch contests, or to administrative expenses like in the case ofMillion Women Mentors to run the program. The work we do is truly rewarding at a personal level. Seeing the glitter in theeyes of the high school students we teach, and the smile of winning teamswhen they receive seed funding are priceless. Our goal is to increase ourfootprint and the impact of our programs as we go forward. We would verymuch appreciate your support in our journey as we build continuous andsustainable initiatives. Korhan Beba - Executive DirectorLeadership Letter
Beba Foundation at a Glance
3 Activity Pillars
Beba Foundation in Numbers1,000+Individuals in Business Pitch Competitons.120K+ Mentoring connections350+ High School students receivedentrepreneurship educationMore than 1,000 students, alumni and professionals competedin GGC, Mercy University Student-Preneur Conference, Bilkent University, and Darüşşafaka HS pitch competitions inthe past 5 years. More than 250 projects were submitted andseed funding was awarded to winning teams.We are one of the founding partners, and the leader ofStemConnector's Million Women Mentors Program inTurkiye. With 3,100 mentees and 1,500 mentors, theprogram succeeded in creating over 120K pledges as ofDecember 2024. We have 232 institutions enrolled in theprogram.Our partnership with Darüşşafaka High School in Turkiye thatstarted with a weekly workshop program in 2021 has evolvedinto an elective class for all 10th graders with the 2022-2023academic year. We work closely with school management todevelop the curriculum and all the content for the classes.
Training - Key Activities and Partnerships Youth in STEM ProgramInitially started as the "Columbia Girls inSTEM", this initiative was set to improveSTEM education to bridge the gender gap,particularly to better serve minoritywomen. In 2021, the program wasrenamed to be more inclusive and alignwith the School’s Diversity, Equity,Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA)Initiative. Over 15 high school students are enrolledin the program every year where they takeclasses from Columbia SPS over a courseof 13 weeks followed by a week of“residency program” in which they get tohear from outside speakers. As Beba Foundation, we are regular guestspeakers at this event and and talk aboutentrepreneurship as a career path andDEIA/Leadership Conversation.
Training - Key Activities and PartnershipsDarüşşafaka High SchoolEntrepreneurship for YouthWorkshop ProgramStarting in 2021-2022 school year, we partnered withDaçka in Istanbul, Turkiye and developed anEntrepreneurship for Youth Program. As part of ourefforts, we built a Team Based Learning Classroom,with state of the art equipment, and resources. We started with one weekly workshop targeting 9thto 11th grades and have expanded it to three weekly workshops that cover all grades from 5th to 11thgrades as of 2023-2024 school year. The 1-hourweekly sessions are made up of lectures, case studies,field trips, team exercises, and outside speakerparticipations. In the last 3 weeks students preparetheir business plans for new business ideas and pitchin a live competition. Winning teams get to go to asummer camp at Sabancı University.
Training - Key Activities and PartnershipsDarüşşafaka High School"Ideation to ImplementationEntrepreneurship andBusiness Management” ClassBuilding on the success of the workshop, we developed the curriculum for an entrepreneurship course to beoffered at 10th grade as a mandatory elective class. So far, 300+ students took the 40-min/week course thatstarted in 2022-2023 school year. Curriculum includes topics such as the basics of economics, businessmanagement, entrepreneurship, leadership, accounting, and finance. There is also a pitch competition at the endof the year. We are working with school management to get Ministry of Education approval on the curriculum to beoffered in all high schools in Turkiye as we go forward with the 2025-2026 academic year.
Training - Key Activities and Partnerships“Entrepreneurship and Business Management Academy” inpartnership with TOBB Antalya Women Entrepreneurs Board We started a collaboration with TOBB Kadin Girişimciler Kurulu in Türkiye in 2024 and are currently workingon a number of projects in Antalya, Kocaeli and Hakkari. The first product of this partnership is the “Girişimcilikve İş Yönetimi Akademisi” that started in November with TOBB KGK’s Antalya and Western MediterraneanChapter. The training program is made up of 8 weekly 2-hour online modules and there are over 80 womenenrolled. Topics are as follows:Keys to success in the changing entrepreneurship ecosystemBusiness idea creation and validation processBusiness models and business model canvasMarketing communications Sustainable branding processes and how to be competitive in global marketsEffective leadershipAccess to capital and financingExperience sharing
Mentoring - Key Activities and PartnershipsMWM Program Beba Foundation is one of the founding partners ofthe MWM Program in Turkiye. The initiative is apartnership with STEMconnector, the U.S. Chamberof Commerce, TurkishWIN, BinYaprak, the foundingpartners led by our co-founder, Umran Beba, andsupported by TOBB and all other participatingorganizations. We will be celebrating Year 4 of the program onMarch 8, 2025. Our goal is to curate 1 millionmentoring relationships by the year 2031. You can visit https://www.bebafoundation.org/mwmto become a mentor through our foundation if youare interested.
Career Mentoring - Key ActivitiesEveryone needs career mentoring. Someorganizations have formal mentoringprograms and some have culturessupporting informal mentoring programs.This is great but not enough. Professionalsdo need external mentors for careerprogression and transitions. That is whatwe offer at all levels. From board ready toC-Suite to managers. Women leaders needthis type of guidance more due to lifestages, care responsibilities and how totackle work life harmony. At BebaFoundation, we have a total of 100 yearsexperience and happy to share guidance oncareers.
Business Idea Competitions - Key Activities andPartnershipsThe Greater Good ChallengeThe Greater Good Challenge was born in 2020 at theheight of the pandemic as we were looking for waysto address some of the unprecedent challenges wewere faced with. In cooperation with ColumbiaUniversity School of Professional Studies, welaunched this new business ideas competition in July2020 and we have recently concluded the 5th one inDecember 2024.GGC is an annual business ideas competition that aimsto provide a platform to showcase business ideas toimprove the social, economic, political, technological,and environmental conditions of mankind, societies,and the planet in the time of COVID-19 and beyond.SUBMISSIONS260+COUNTRIES30 GGC Year 1 winners, MicroTERRA is awomen led team that proposed a wayto produce sustainable, scalable andaffordable plant-based protein, grownin aquafarms, reducing waste wateroutput for farms and allowing theuptake of more sustainable aquaculturemethods. They later went on tocompete in other competitions andraised $2.9M in funds.
Student-Preneur Conference The Annual Student-Preneur Conference and BusinessPlan Competition that promotes entrepreneurship andcelebrates the growing number of student entrepreneursat Mercy University in NY is another initiative we havebeen supporting as Beba Foundation since 2022.The event drew more than 250 attendees who participatedin person and virtually from all campuses includingstudents from the Academy of Finance at Lincoln HighSchool in Yonkers over the past 3 years. The wining team of 2024 - Trace - went on to take the top20 spot at Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization’s 41stAnnual Global Pitch Competition at Tampa in Novemberwhere over 600 teams participated from all around the US. Business Idea Competitions - Key Activities andPartnerships
Bilkent University Bilkent-Preneur ChallengeWe started a new partnership with BilkentUniversity in Ankara, Türkiye in 2024 andthe first business idea competition was heldin May. 16 teams competed for a chance toget seed funding, networking andmentorship. Business Idea Competitions - Key Activities andPartnerships
Trinity College Summit Innovation ChallengeThe Annual Innovation Challenge Summit is a businessideas pitch competition program that we startedsupporting in 2023 at Trinity College in partnershipwith Trinity College Entrepreneurship Club, andConnecticut Invention Convention. 100+ studentsparticipated in the last 2 years for a chance to get seedfunding and mentoring.Business Idea Competitions - Key Activities andPartnerships
Other Key Activities and PartnershipsHKUST One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition
Other Key Activities and PartnershipsIstanbul Doğa Koleji SeminarsTOBB KGK Kocaeli PartnershipTOBB KGK Hakkari PartnershipHakkari Teknokent HighSchoolIBA Pakistan GGC
Other Key Activities and PartnershipsWe Choose Hope ProjectIstanbul Commerce UniversityIncubation Contest MentoringSupporting other non-profit organizationsHakkariUniversityPartnership
Monthly Blog PostsWe issue monthly blog posts on our website on issues, innovations, news, andthought provoking subjects that are relevant and useful for entrepreneurs. Theseare to the point, short and easy to read articles aiming to provide initialinformation and create curiosity.
Awards and RecognitionsDarüşşafaka HighSchoolRecognitions
In 2025, and looking into the future, our priority willbe to enlarge our footprint and the impact of ourongoing initiatives. We can get there faster if youwould consider joining us as a mentor, trainer, andwith your generous contributions that are 100% taxdeductible.In addition to our ongoing projects, some of the newpartnerships and initiatives we have planned are asfollows:Hakkari University “Genç Fikirler Yarışıyor”business ideas competition.TOBB KGK Kocaeli, vocational schools“Entrepreneurship for Youth” workshops.Adıyaman University “Tekno-Girişimcilik Merkezi”Hakkari Teknokent Koleji “Entrepreneurship forYouth” workshops.Institute of Business Administration, Karachi (IBA)Greater Good Challenge. Looking Into 2025
www.bebafoundation.org121 East 23rd St, 3CNew York, NY 10010info@bebafoundation.org