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Jan. 15 deadline to request participation in Pre18 program nears

In December, P18 visited several municipalities with the purpose of guiding and helping entrepreneurs interested in joining the program to fill out applications. (Credit: José R. Madera)

Global business accelerator Parallel18 announced Wednesday the deadline for requesting acceptance into the Pre18 program is Jan. 15, 2018. The pre-accelerator seeks to develop innovative businesses in Puerto Rico, in the early stages with potential to reach global markets.

In December, P18 visited several municipalities with the purpose of guiding and helping entrepreneurs interested in joining the program to fill out applications.

P18 has been operating since 2015 as part of the Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust, in collaboration with the Department of Economic Development and Commerce and the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Co., to attract and create high impact startups that can scale from Puerto Rico to global communities.

The P18 team will be assisting interested parties in the program and helping with applications (and access to the Internet) again on Jan. 13, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at: P18’s offices located at 1250 Ponce de Leon Ave., Santurce; Ponce Art Museum; and 3. PRTec in Mayagüez.

The application can be found online until Jan. 15th, and must be completed in English, since the evaluation will be done through the YouNoodle platform by international judges.

Pre18 is a program dedicated to helping innovative businesses in Puerto Rico, in early stages, with global potential, to reach the market. Once selected through an evaluation committee, up to 40 Puerto Rican companies will participate in the program, which will include workshops, mentoring and monitoring for 12 weeks and will receive a $20,000 grant.

The business development curriculum will be offered by local and international mentors, so the work sessions can be in English or Spanish. Another advantage that the program offers is that at the end of the 12-week period, the 20 most important companies go directly to the evaluation of the selection committee to enter the fifth generation (G5) of the accelerator that returns in the summer of 2018.

Selected companies also have access to a package of services with local and international companies such as: Amazon Web Services, SendGrid, HubSpot and others, equivalent to more than $200,000.

Pre18 was designed after Hurricane María struck, as an opportunity to help Puerto Rican entrepreneurs stand up and take advantage of this crucial, challenging and historic moment so that they can prepare and expose their businesses to a next stage of growth, in an environment that allows them to breathe motivation and look with optimism toward the future. For this reason, a marketing campaign for pre18 was created under the “El Boricua se Inventa” slogan, recognizing the creativity that Puerto Ricans have shown throughout history and that came up again in the weeks following the hurricane.

To participate in the program it is required that at least one founder work full time on the project, from the Parallel18 offices in Santurce through the duration of the program and comply with the required activities.

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This story was written by our staff based on a press release.
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