On the 13th, registration will open for the first program of 2023 of the Amazon Journey, Gênese, aimed at young talents, with the aim of awakening them to entrepreneurship. Jornada Amazônia is an innovation platform that aims to promote businesses that support the maintenance of the forest standing. The Genesis Program also intends to encourage research aimed at products and processes that have an impact on the forest.
Registration is free and can be done at site genese.jornadaamazonia.org.br until the 12th of March. The initiative is coordinated and implemented by Fundação Certi and counts on the co-participation and investments of Bradesco, Fundo Vale, Itaú-Unibanco and Santander, within the Plano Amazônia, an alliance between the three banks, and Fundo Vale’s Bioeconomy Program.
The manager of the Certi Foundation’s Green Economy Center, Janice Rodrigues Maciel, informed that young talent residing in the nine states of the Legal Amazon, over 18 years of age, high school students, technical education students, undergraduate and graduate students from institutions of higher education in the region. According to Janice, the goal is to reach 2,000 subscribers. “The objective is to awaken young talent and encourage entrepreneurship and research aimed at generating new companies that have a positive impact on the forest. Because our purpose is precisely to help strengthen the entrepreneurial culture of the Amazon region”.
training community
Once enrolled, young people begin to form part of a training community, aimed at strengthening the culture of entrepreneurship and impact innovation, according to Marcos Da-Ré, Green Economy director at the Certi Foundation. In this training, which lasts an estimated four weeks and is scheduled to start on March 20, young people will become accustomed to content on entrepreneurship, bioeconomy, innovation, added Janice. The idea is to encourage ideas that bring new solutions and that consider local opportunities, market demands, in addition to the socioeconomic and environmental sustainability of the Amazon rainforest.
At the end of the training, the most engaged young entrepreneurs who participate the most can compete for a trip to discover the Florianópolis Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystem, at the end of the year. This ecosystem is a great hub of startups (emerging companies) in the country. Some of the pole’s elements are being adapted and taken to the Amazon, in order to help strengthen the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in the region, as a way of valuing the standing forest, said Janice. She said that the trip, for the young people enrolled, is a source of inspiration, as they will be able to learn about success stories.
The manager added that each week of training, a new topic will be addressed, such as biotechnology, innovation ecosystem, impact business, for example. “Throughout these weeks, we prepare young people for the curiosity to undertake. We simulate an entrepreneurial journey, the creation of a startup from birth to a scale phase. It is very dynamic, interesting and interactive”. A series of interactive contents such as video lessons, podcasts (radio program with content on demand), quizzes (quiz games), webinars (videoconferencing) live, involving resources such as virtual reality, are made available to young people.
Work ends in April. Participants receive a certificate with the total hours for validation of complementary activity. “In the end, business ideas emerge and, then, we link with the next program, which is also part of the Amazon Journey, which is the Bioeconomy Synapse”.
Synapse
This program helps entrepreneurs to take the idea off paper and turn it into a real business. This is a longer-term program, with an estimated term of one year, in which entrepreneurs receive non-refundable funds to create their business. “Gênese helps to stimulate an entrepreneurial culture and the birth of ideas so that, in a next step, you can start thinking about opening your own business”, explained Janice. Registration for the Bioeconomy Synapse will open in the middle of the year. In other words, anyone who has a good idea during the Genesis program, which is part of the Amazon Journey, will be able to enroll in the middle of the year for the Bioeconomy Synapse.
Last year, an edition of the program was held in Pará, involving 97 different municipalities in the state, from the capital to small communities such as Aldeia Gavião Parkatêjê, Quilombola de França Community and Quilombo Tiningu. In all, 516 young people accessed the Training Community and 273 were trained in the proposed actions. The cycle resulted in 105 new ideas for entrepreneurial solutions aimed at the bioeconomy in the Legal Amazon region.
Platform
By 2025, the Jornada Amazônia platform intends to contribute to the mobilization of more than 20,000 entrepreneurial talents in the country and promote the creation of 200 startups of impact in the region, training and financing these companies with more promising solutions.
