Sep 19, 2023
Beja, Portugal – September 19, 2023 – Polytechnic Institute of Beja recently signed an MOU with Empowered Startups to expand Empowered’s HQA Visa™ Program to the institution. This will give IPBeja the opportunity to receive foreign direct investment towards research secured through the program.
Empowered Startups, a Canadian multinational based in Évora, has been operating its HQA Visa program in Portugal for a little over three years, but recently delivered to the Government a Commitment Letter agreeing to recruit 50 new entrepreneurs, business executives, and domain experts to invest in new projects within the next 12 months, and then to grow the program further each year thereafter. The Commitment Letter was presented to the Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Ana Abrunhosa in a session at the Alentejo Science and Technology Park, on February 8, 2023.
Empowered Startups has already established partnerships with the universities of the Algarve, Aveiro, Évora, Beira Interior and with the polytechnic institutes of Bragança, Guarda, Leiria, Santarém, Viana do Castelo and Portalegre. With the addition of Polytechnic Institute of Beja, Empowered Startups will further its commitment to expand the program to universities and polytechnics throughout the interior regions and bring foreign investment to the country.
“With this program, we bring direct foreign investment to universities and polytechnics in the form of research funding and commercialization expertise. Our program also brings broader economic stimuli, particularly to the interior regions, by creating and establishing new companies, commercializing new technology, and bringing international talent to local economies,” says Chris Lennon, President of Empowered Startups.
The HQA Visa Program aims to recruit highly qualified foreign professionals, with domain expertise, business leadership, and entrepreneurial experience, to start and finance research projects at Universities and Polytechnics and to spin out new startup companies to commercialize Portuguese innovation resulting from those projects.
Apply to the HQA Visa program today.
Aug 16, 2023
In July, the Canadian government announced a new option for H-1B visa holders in the US to receive expedited work permits to live and work in Canada for at least three years. The new program opened to 10,000 applicants for the year, but within 24 hours, the new program had met its quota. This means thousands of people didn’t get an opportunity to even apply for the program.
Alternative to the H-1B Visa in the US
There are, however, other ways for H-1B visa holder in the United States to make their way to Canada, without worrying about the latest visa caps. By pivoting to the Start Up Visa program, and partnering with Empowered Startups, H-1B visa holders will have even better opportunities to live and work in Canada and bring their families with them. Here are the top five reasons H-1B visa holders should consider the Start Up Visa program:
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- Immigration policies in the United States are changing the likelihood you’ll be approved for an H-1B visa. While popular for years, only 14.6% of all applicants for the Fiscal 2024 year will be approved according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) figures. More than 780,000 applications were submitted.
- The Start Up Visa for Canada hasn’t hit any caps so the likelihood of getting approval is much higher than in the United States.
- Bring your family with you to settle in Canada – with universal healthcare for permanent residents and citizens, a culture of diversity and inclusion, and excellent public education, it’s the perfect place to bring your business.
- Canada’s recently launched Tech Talent Strategy is providing additional resources to attract tech talent from around the world.
- Empowered Startups can help you through the whole process from applications through successful incubation of your business. With more than a decade of experience, Empowered Startups is ready to help you achieve your business goals!
With less and less certainty of getting approved for an H-1B visa in the United States, the Start Up Visa in Canada is a viable and exciting option for entrepreneurs around the world. Find out how Empowered Startups can help you apply today.
Aug 1, 2023
Exciting growth from another startup in incubation at Empowered Startups. Glazer, an innovative video game publishing platform, has grown its online community to over 8,000 professional video gamers.
Since its launch, Glazer has built a strong gaming community in India and South Asia and has recently expanded to the North American market. Glazer’s Discord servers are hubs for gamers, esports enthusiasts, and NFT aficionados. With a range of interactive events and tournaments, the community-driven South Asian and North American Discord servers are an exciting experience for all participants.
In a move highlighting Glazer‘s commitment to innovation, the Discord server will also feature the introduction of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) into the gaming and esports community. NFTs, unique digital assets that can represent ownership or authenticity, have gained significant traction in recent years. Glazer aims to leverage the power of NFTs to enhance the value and experience for its community members. Through various mechanisms, participants can collect, trade, and showcase NFTs related to their favorite games, esports teams, and memorable moments.
“Glazer’s North American Discord server is not just a platform; it’s a vibrant community where gamers, esports enthusiasts, and NFT enthusiasts come together to forge unforgettable experiences, unlock new opportunities, and shape the future of the gaming industry.”- Kripashree Rajkhowa, Co-Founder and CEO
Creating a central hub for passionate gaming and esports enthusiasts is just the start. Glazer is developing a decentralized video game publishing platform that will shape the future of gaming and esports in North America. Currently, a few companies control the distribution of video games and in doing so take a significant portion of revenue. By breaking this control and putting revenue back into the hands of small video game companies and leveraging feedback from the gaming community, Glazer is poised to spur innovation and growth in the industry for years to come.
Glazer
Glazer Games is a pioneering company that seeks to revolutionize the gaming industry by bringing game developers and gamers together on a blockchain-based, decentralized video game publishing platform. The company’s goal is to end the current distribution monopoly in the gaming industry and provide new opportunities to game developers, players, and streamers.
Contact information
Kripashree Rajkhowa, Co-Founder and CEO
[email protected]
www.theglazer.com
LinkedIn
Discord
Jul 31, 2023
Seattle, Washington – July 31, 2023 – With Canada facing the worst fire season in 100 years, and the US not faring any better, solutions to combat our changing climate threats would be welcome reprieve. Thankfully, one of Empowered Startups’ entrepreneurs is working on a system to help with early detection and prevention through innovative technology.
Through Empowered Startups’ EB2 Startup Visa program, and in partnership with the William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics at the University of Washington (UW), founder Yomi Bakare mentored a team of six UW undergraduate students enrolled in the department’s capstone program during a five-month period in planning, strategizing, and building an early quadrotor prototype.
The R&D project aimed to build a quadrotor prototype that can be used by governments and agencies to predict, identify, and/or manage increasingly frequent and powerful climate disasters using Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies. Specifically, the quadrotor prototype would be designed to combat forest fires by gathering specific data points using build-in sensors and processing this data using software to decode the probability and risk severity of an event.
In this first round of R&D to reach a minimum viable product, the undergraduate team at the UW was able to create the framework of interconnected systems for quadrotor function, build out the avionics architecture connecting the sensors, battery power and remote control mechanism into a centralized system, and test several system components conducive to the quadrotor’s flight carrying a payload of equipment that would serve to send important data back to a ground control system and sustain battery power.
“The project is a timely initiative, as evidenced by the current global climate challenges the world is facing. Any attempt to provide potential mitigations to these climate challenges deserves to receive the attention and support of academia, civil organizations, businesses, and governments. We must take care of this planet for our collective well-being,” says Bakare.
The end goal of Mr. Bakare’s R&D is to have a commercially viable unmanned aerial vehicle prototype that will:
- Be remotely controlled to fly beyond line of visual sight with suitable endurance to areas of potential wildfires;
- Have built-in sensors and cameras that can detect, gather, and transmit environmental data in real-time into a remote cloud for processing;
- Have accompanying software that will receive real-time data from the built-in sensors and cameras from the remote cloud and process that data using sophisticated predesigned algorithms to predict wildfires.
So, what’s next for Yomi Bakare and the quadrotor? He is continuing to work on the prototype with hopes of completion in the near future.
“We will continue to collaborate with value-adding partners to enable us to bring the project to market within the possible shortest time frame. Work continues to refine the aerial vehicle and develop the accompanying software,” Bakare shares. “We will also work to ‘harden the UAV airframe’ to be able to handle extreme temperatures and accelerate the development of the software for predicting the probability of wildfires.”
Learn more about the EB2 Startup Visa program today.
