WEPAN Wins Stage Two of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced WEPAN as one of forty-four Stage Two winners for the 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition (GAFC). WEPAN will receive a $100,000 cash prize for its work as a Growth Accelerator Partnership in supporting the launch, growth, and scale of STEM/R&D-focused small businesses across all three theme areas of the competition: National and Economic Security, Domestic Manufacturing and Production, and Sustainability and Biotechnology.

“As an organization focused on equity in STEM, WEPAN is proud to be part of inclusive STEM innovation ecosystem building efforts nationwide,” says Dr. Heather Metcalf, Managing Dir. of Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at WEPAN. “The SBA GAFC prize funding allows us to partner in meaningful ways that promote systemic change alongside liberatory models for innovation education.”

The 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition catalyzes strategic innovation ecosystem building across the country. Over the last decade, SBA has awarded 566 in prizes totaling over $33 million to winners throughout the U.S. and U.S. territories.

2024 GAFC Stage One focused on strengthening ecosystem networks, while Stage Two prizes provide enhanced support to Growth Accelerator Partnerships as they play a crucial role in helping startups and small businesses scale, contributing to the economic growth of our nation. These partnerships span public, private, nonprofit, and academic institutions, fostering collaboration across industries and geographies.

For the GAFC, WEPAN is partnering with Graduate Fellowships for STEM Diversity, AISES: Advancing Indigenous People in STEM, and the American Association of Colleges and Universities to form The Empowered STEM Entrepreneurship Collective. The Empowered STEM Entrepreneurship Collective envisions a STEM innovation ecosystem where women and gender non-conforming innovators of color thrive. Together, the Collective will enact this vision through accelerator programming, gatebreaker training, community and network development activities, and resource dissemination across the ecosystem.

Learn more about the Stage One and Stage Two organizations in the 2024 GAFC Public Directory.

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‍WEPAN is a non-profit educational organization founded in 1990. It is the nation’s first network dedicated to advancing cultures of inclusion and diversity in engineering higher education and workplaces. WEPAN connects people, research and practice. It offers powerful initiatives, projects and professional development that equip advocates with the tools to create sustainable, systems-level changes that allow ALL in engineering to thrive. To learn more, visit www.wepan.org.