BRAZIL//Strong Beginnings

‍

Our partnership in Brazil with Bluefields Development officially launched in August! Bluefields is using the 16-week Sinapis Academy curriculum as a backbone of their comprehensive accelerator, “The Big BaM”. The accelerator offers entrepreneurs a network of strong local mentors, leadership training, execution support, and assistance with raising capital. In addition to Sinapis, the Big BaM is offered in partnership with Mackenzie University, one of the top Universities in Brazil, and Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.The organization is led by co-founder and CEO Paulo Humaitá. Paulo is an economist by training with a successful background in biotechnology. However, in 2014 he felt a clear call by God to develop a Christ-centered business accelerator to equip Kingdom Entrepreneurs in Brazil and to create business as mission opportunities in places in the world that are closed to the gospel.The entrepreneurs selected for Bluefield’s current cohort are operating a variety of exciting companies that include a fintech payments platform that allows churches and nonprofits to more easily and quickly accept donations, an agribusiness making products to enable urban agriculture led by the son of one of Brazil's most successful commercial farmers, and a Christian Syrian refugee seeking to help other refugees with a marketplace startup.Bluefields has also been hosting Christian networking events that are growing in popularity. Their most recent event, “Technology and Startups in Service of the King,” featured a talk on artificial intelligence being used for Kingdom work, pitches by three Kingdom startups, a presentation by a Kingdom venture fund, as well as networking opportunities.Entrepreneurs have shared that they are blown away by the quality of the Sinapis Academy curriculum and have said the entire program has exceeded their expectations. Bluefields is building a reputation as one of the strongest entrepreneurship programs in the country, and Emory University’s innovation team has commented that the selection process and structure is one of the best they’ve ever seen at an early stage accelerator.