Manatee Mentor, a social impact startup, created during the pandemic in order to bring mentors and mentees together, launched their very own Beta app on 30 March.
In the works for 6 months, the app is enabling both mentors and mentees to connect to one another and make their professional success predictable.
Simple and easy to use, it takes only a couple of minutes to set up your mentoring profile and start working towards your professional development goals. Once downloaded, professionals will be able to give and receive the support they need to reach their career goals: with a click of a button the app allows you to switch between a mentor and a mentee role.
It all began when the Founder Lucy Setian and her Co-Founder Aditya Raj were completing their Executive MBA program. Being part of such an exclusive learning business program was what inspired Lucy. Determined to open the doors to peer mentoring in the business world and transform it from an exclusive to an inclusive learning experience, she decided to launch Manatee Mentor. She shared that, “I wanted to create something for those looking for mentors. A colleague of mine asked for me to mentor her and I loved it, truly did.”
Lucy believed that technology can help remove the expensive price tag of business clubs and educational programs, and help support anyone around the world in making their professional success predictable. Joining forces, the three international founders wanted to find a way to “liberalize” mentoring through technology and support other professionals to give back at scale.
Their “Why” factor is driven by the belief that having scalable social impact and running a business are not mutually exclusive, and that mentoring can help build up both individuals and organizations. Manatee Mentor supports the reach of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 8 for equitable access to continuous life-long education and inclusive and sustainable economic growth.
When deciding the name “Manatee Mentor”, the first part was based on the word “Mana” which means an impersonal power of doing good which can be transmitted or inherited, shares Aditya. They chose Manatee as their mascot based on the friendly and intelligent sea cow. “The name just clicked. It sounded great saying Manatee Mentor, something catchy but also combining both the Mentor and Mentee,” shares Claes.
Manatee Mentor is now the digital mentoring home of more than 110 Founding Volunteer Mentors from organizations such as Amazon, Google, Novartis, seniors@work, the World Health Organization, EMCC, the World Economic Forum, MIT, Angelus Funding, University of Michigan, Stage-Co, AGBU Armenia, TetraScience, Nina Space, UCB, Oriflame, KinderCare Zimbabwe, Philip Morris International, YouChronia, Sunrise, Blockchain Catalunya, Quattro Capital, Accenture, SwissCognitive, University of Geneva, Oryx Group, Diabetes Center Berne, Pan African Women in Health, Carlsberg, Danaher Corporation, Actiris.brussels, BP, Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Ukraine, International Women in Science and more. T
The platform has already over 900 pre-signed members from over 20 countries and 5 international support partners including Stage-Co in Turkey, ABLE Bulgaria, AGBU Young Professionals Yerevan in Armenia, the Youth Empowerment and Support Initiative - Malawi, and Women in Digital Switzerland.
For more information and to learn more about the social impact startup visit our website and download the Beta app in Google Play.
