44 Fellows join EHF Cohort 3!

Our Base Camp for a Better World Continues to Expand

We are excited to announce that 44 Fellows are joining Cohort 3 of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship!

EHF Fellows are innovative entrepreneurs and investors building new solutions to create positive impact on the world, and contributing to the transformation of New Zealand’s economy. Between building new technologies, bringing new paradigm approaches to existing sectors, and helping create new industries, EHF Fellows are leading the way towards a more inclusive and equitable economy.

At its core, EHF is a supportive community for entrepreneurial leaders to realise their potential for global impact. International Fellows qualify for the Global Impact Visa, the world’s first immigration policy focused on impact.

Since our early-2017 launch, 1,130 individuals from 88 countries have applied to be considered for a Fellowship. There are now a total of 108 Fellows in the EHF community across our three cohorts, and the critical mass that is building is enabling the collective impact of Fellows.

For Cohort 3, a record number of 510 individuals applied for EHF from 67 countries, contributing to by far our highest quality applicant pool. Selecting 44 Fellows from this group was a highly competitive process, with an acceptance rate of just 8.6%.

Our 44 Fellows hail from 17 nationalities and represent 11 ethnicities, including South Asian, Hispanic, Māori and Pacific Islander. Our youngest Fellow is 22 and oldest is 66.

12 Fellows in Cohort 3 are New Zealanders, who are joining EHF to tap into the global community and bring unique perspectives from all corners of Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s our largest contingent of Kiwi Fellows in a cohort, and we have witnessed a sharp increase in the number and quality of Kiwi applicants to EHF.

25% of our Fellows in Cohort 3 are women, with 70% men, while 5% identify as transgender, non-binary or gender-fluid. While we are excited by many aspects of the diversity of Cohort 3, we are working hard to attract more women entrepreneurs and investors to be part of EHF.

Here are a few examples of the ways that our Fellows are working towards creating global impact:

• Democratising the investment process by building a world-leading platform for entrepreneurs to connect with investors and talent, which has raised over USD$700m for 2,000 startups.
• Cities contribute more than 70% of global CO2 emissions, but as centres of innovation they can also lead scaled climate action. One of our Fellows served as the first Chief Sustainability Officer to one of the largest cities in the world which has a GDP four times that of New Zealand’s, and he is building on that experience to accelerate climate innovation.
• The nature of work is changing rapidly, with high demand for engineering talent, and traditional education institutions are not equipped to meet this gap. One of our Fellows runs a free educational community of over 700,000 software developers to hone their skills through coding challenges. This includes a platform for employers to assess engineers on a set of merit-based standards that offer equal hiring opportunities for the best talent (regardless of formal education), and a suite of educational tools to upskill their teams.
• Youth suicide is a chronic issue that is growing around the world, and New Zealand has the highest rates among developed countries. One of our Fellows is creating spaces designed by youth where they can find their own voice, a sense of belonging and trust, and tap into their creative potential.
• More than 8 million metric tons of plastic enter the oceans annually, most of which originates from Asia and the South Pacific. One of our Fellows is building an industry for recycled ocean plastic products for mass market, tracing the plastic from source to finish, and de-risking the product for global brands.
• Māori have a youthful population, and for many whānau (families) and hapū (clans), their cultural tikanga and heritage is on the decline. One of our Fellows is leading grassroots initiatives working with Iwi (tribal) leadership to facilitate intergenerational knowledge transfer and develop Māori leaders for a bicultural society.
• The blockchain ecosystem is growing extremely fast, on one side offering new platforms for distributed ownership and capital raising, but on the other side attracting low-integrity players that makes involvement less secure. One of our Fellows built the premier marketplace for global fundraising via Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) that facilitated the raise of over $500m for blockchain based companies just in the last year.
• We have a significant housing shortage in New Zealand and around the world, and the cost of housing is increasing unsustainably. One of our Fellows is a pioneer in low energy, high performance housing innovation, providing online education for low carbon housing design, and building open source tools for architects and builders.

Over the coming weeks, we will be introducing each Fellow on our blog: https://stories.ehf.org.

Our investor Fellows are of an exceptional calibre, bringing access to resources, and depth of knowledge in valuable areas for the EHF community and the New Zealand startup ecosystem. 32% of Cohort 3 actively invest in high impact startups, including 10 Fellows who play leading roles in established venture capital or private equity funds.

Our Cohort 3 investor Fellows represent USD$2 billion of investable capital in innovative startups, most of which is part of venture capital funds they are stewarding. We expect such access will open new doors for the New Zealand startup ecosystem, which has a significant gap in startup capital.

Looking through the lens of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, the problem areas Cohort 3 Fellows are working on collectively address all the 17 goals. These are the 7 most common goals Fellows are addressing:

1. Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure
2. Sustainable Cities & Communities
3. Quality Education
4. Reduced Inequalities
5. Good Health & Wellbeing
6. Decent Work & Economic Growth
7. Climate Action

UNSDG’s that Fellows in Cohort 3 of Edmund Hillary Fellowship are Focused On

While the UNSDGs have significant limitations as a way of measuring impact, they provide a valuable and widely used framework to creating social, environmental, economic, and cultural impact.

The most common industries and impact areas our Fellows are working on are:

• Education and training
• Environment
• Blockchain
• Communications
• Indigenous Empowerment

I am thrilled to be welcoming the 44 Fellows into the EHF community and introduce them to the innovation ecosystem in New Zealand. Cohort 3 Fellows will be coming together in the Wellington Region later this year for their induction event, to build community, learn tikanga Māori (Māori customs and ways of doing things), and connect with the New Zealand ecosystem. They will be sharing their stories during the next New Frontiers, 4–6 November 2018. If you are looking to connect with the Fellow community, you can request to participate through the website.

I would like to thank everyone who applied for Cohort 3 and shared with us their vision for a better world. Our team is humbled by your passion for global change and your conviction that New Zealand can lead the way. Thank you for the work you do, and for sharing your story with us.

Applications for Cohort 4 are now open! Apply online here— the early bird deadline with reduced application fees is 1 August 2018, and final deadline is 2 September 2018.