Spring appears to have come early in central Portugal where the partnership between Polytechnic Institute of Guarda (IPG) and Empowered Startups is blossoming. As a direct result of Empowered Startups’ HQA Visa Program, IPG will collaborate with “Seed by Seed”, a North American backed startup aimed at facilitating access to microcredit for workers and small businesses with low digital literacy.
As first reported in Jornal de Negócios, the partnership between IPG and “Seed by Seed” was made official on Friday, March 8th and is the first of many such collaboration on research and development at the higher education institution this year via the HQA partnership with Empowered Startups. Michael Racki, a member of the Board of Directors at GoDaddy, is the entrepreneur behind “Seed by Seed”, which aims to develop a network of mentoring and training and capacity building courses tailored to the needs of its customers dedicated to the topics of entrepreneurship, digital technologies applied to business management and innovation in traditional sectors of activity.
A significant advantage of Empowered’s HQA Visa Program is its established network of prestigious partner institutions in Portugal, which continues to expand. More than a dozen Portuguese universities and polytechnics have already signed agreements with the Canadian multinational to facilitate R&D with the innovative startups created by participants in its HQA Visa Program. Empowered Startups is the only government-endorsed delivery partner of the HQA Visa.
Empowered Startups has already welcomed 65 entrepreneurs to Portugal as part of its three-year commitment to bring 250 internationally funded projects to at least 10 universities and polytechnics throughout the country.
