Brisbane’s River City Labs is backing 20 women tech founders with a new mentoring program

Brisbane’s River City Labs is looking to back up to 20 women entrepreneurs in a new program that will offer emerging tech companies run by female founders with several months of support and mentoring to get their ideas to the next level.

The Elevating Female Founders Program, was launched at the annual Something Tech. festival this week.

The program is open to 20 Queensland-based women founders and offers eight months of support, including structured mentoring, coaching, education skills workshops, industry connections and dedicated Entrepreneur In Residence, along with a 12-month digital membership to River City Labs, which is run by ACS, the professional association for Australia’s technology sector.

Aspiring founders accepted into the program will need to dedicate a minimum of 10 hours a week towards it for the first fours months, with the second half of the offering dedicated support of 10 hours a fortnight for the next for months, as well as being to travel to Brisbane, twice between July and August 2024.

The program will be divided into two streams: early-stage companies (pre-product) and later stage companies (post-product).

ACS Innovation Labs director Pauline Fetaui said that the 12-month RCL membership offers a range of benefits including access to the organisation’s Talent Landing Pad Pool of interns and tech professionals and its mentor database, as well as referrals into networks and business opportunities.

“With this program we’re looking to help female entrepreneurs on their business journey with a mix of cohort-based and one on one support to guide founders to their goals no what stage their business is at,” she said.

” So, if you are at the seed of an idea to a flourishing business, our program can support your journey and we’d love to hear from you.” 

To quality, you’ll need to be a Queensland resident with a tech startup also registered in the state.

“At RCL we want to be the launchpad for emerging tech companies to solve global problems, this program will use River City Labs’ 11 years of experience to help Elevate Female Founders take their businesses to the next level,”Fentaui said.

“The difference in this program is we are meeting the founders where they are with leadership from fellow female founders and mentors”.

The program details and registration links are here.