Scholarship Criteria at the Atlanta Tech Village

One of the projects we’re working on at the Atlanta Tech Village is setting up a scholarship program for entrepreneurs and startups. The idea is that internally as well as sponsors might want to support certain areas that aren’t as represented like social enterprises, student entrepreneurs, B2C startups, specific industry verticals, etc. We’re confident that our strength is going to be B2B/enterprise software but part of our overall mission is to support the entire tech and startup ecosystem.

Besides the obvious question of how many scholarships will we have, which will be determined by sponsorships, the next question is: what criteria will we use to decide?

Here are some criteria ideas we’re currently brainstorming (it would be a combination of attributes):

• Startups that haven’t raised any money
• Startups that have less than a certain amount of total revenue (e.g. $10,000)
• Startups with specific founder characteristics (e.g. certain demographics)
• Startups targeting a vertical desired by a sponsor (e.g. a large digital media company that wants to help other digital media startups)
• Startups with a double or triple bottom line (e.g. a social enterprise that helps the community and makes money)

Over time we’ll figure out what does and doesn’t work with scholarships. Right now, we’re looking forward to trying it out and learning as we go.

What else? What are some other ideas for scholarship criteria?