Hey everyone!
Thanks for all the support this community has offered.
I am applying as the exceptional promise category as a business founder.
I would like to go for the Mentorship Criteria. However, I am not sure about the mentorship criterion.
Brief background
I am the sole founder of a digital product start up aimed at students.
I have collaborated with 3 Universities in the UK. The collaboration was in support of the Master’s Programme for their students - Their degrees were within the tech space i.e UX/UI etc. This gives students the opportunity to work with companies to produce reports using the company as a test case. In a much bigger company, the companies would assign a students a mentor. However, because I am the sole founder and we are a small business, I personally mentored the students.
Across these universities, I mentored 6 students all of whom were from diverse backgrounds.
My DILEMMA:
OC2 States, Evidence of mentorship must be for “activity outside the applicant’s organisation or normal course of work duties.”
The collaboration with the universities can only be done through an organisation.
Mentoring the students is also not part of my “normal” work duties. I mentored them with the technical components like UX/UI design. (I am a non-technical founder)
I am now confused as to whether the assessors would view it as outside my work duties or normal day to day work.
Do you think I can make a case for OC2 with these experiences?
Or do you think I can rephrase the experience as impact for OC3 for entrepreneurial contributions to the field as a founder?
To show that I have established relationships with our crucial stakeholders to catapult the digital products to the next level.
Because of that I am confused between OC3’s Commercial Contribution vs Entrepreneurial Contribution.
I am the sole founder and bootstrapped the business with personal savings that are less than £25k so I am not sure about “Commercial Contribution”.
Can anyone please help clarify with examples what the difference between Commercial Contribution vs Entrepreneurial Contribution is?
@Shreeniwas_Iyer , @Savvkin @somdipdey @Tamil_Selvan @alex_james @Maya @alexnk I’d truly appreciate your thought.
Thank you sooo much for the help 