It has been a number of years now that Orange Grove has been offering its services to innovative entrepreneurs in Greece. We are very happy that, as of this summer, we are finally able to reach people all over the country through our new e-learning platform. But what is it that Orange Grove offers? Apart from the obvious educational programs, workshops and lectures, we believe the most important element is its people. Over the last 7 years we have built up an ever-growing ecosystem of mentors, entrepreneurs, universities, public sector officials and large corporates. Each and every one of these members of the ecosystem have offered their time, knowledge and experience voluntarily to each other. People from all over the world, with very different backgrounds, ideas and ways of working. This mix of so many different people from all walks of life, is what in our opinion enriches Orange Grove and our participants. We have mentors who despite their full work schedules, still find the time to offer their advice to our entrepreneurs.
Experts not only from the Netherlands, but also from the US, Israel, Australia, Colombia and all over Europe are part of this network, thus creating a truly global network of knowledge and expertise. Imagine how amazing it is that an engineer can be advised by someone at Philips or Netflix. An agro-producer can be supported by an expert from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. A researcher can discuss his or her business plan with any one of our corporate sponsors: Heineken, Interamerican, Philips, FrieslandCampina, or receive financial advice from Reggeborgh Invest.
Participants at Orange Grove receive unique market insights and an international outlook from their very first steps. Clearly, people with such a wealth of experience in doing business can teach starting entrepreneurs a lot about the importance of a business plan, about positioning your product, marketing and innovation.
What makes us especially happy is that our new e-learning platform finally makes it possible to share this wealth of knowledge and expertise with the entire country. Many wonderful exchanges between mentors and entrepreneurs were taking place in our space in Athens and stayed there. They were not accessible to the large pool of talent that exists in the rest of the country. Now, for the first time, it is!
It is clear that we are very grateful for all the energy this large group of people has invested into our entrepreneurs. Without them Orange Grove would not be the same! Stay tuned for updates on our new Orange Grove blog. You will also be reading blog posts from the members of our ecosystem and of course feel free to share your own blog posts with us!