Twenty-eight small business owners in the Bronx are the first cohort of students to complete an emerging technology mentorship program piloted by Lehman College’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS) in conjunction with the Verizon Foundation.

Under the initiative, which launched in October, the business owners participated in eight hours of technology training via Zoom. They were also paired with a Verizon employee volunteer and mentor group for seven weekly sessions, where they covered topics such as financing, marketing, competitive analysis, and proposal writing. Additional on-call help was available by phone, email, and text. The business owners will continue meeting with their mentors, as needed, for 15 more weeks.

The program is the result of a two-year $100,000 grant that Verizon awarded to the SCPS’s Bronx Tech Incubator center last December, to develop free training workshops in 5G technologies, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other web-based applications for 250 small businesses across the five boroughs. In particular, the program was designed to attract small business owners who are veterans and minority and women-owned businesses (MWBEs).

April Horton is a Verizon government affairs official and said, “Small businesses are the lifeblood of our communities.” She added, “Verizon’s partnership with Lehman demonstrates our commitment to supporting local MWBE’s within our communities, and creating a path to ensure those businesses are prepared to embrace technological innovation.”

Vincent Navarro, the Bronx-born founder of a small healthcare software company called SciGence, Inc. that focuses on nurses’ digital learning, was enthusiastic about his future after completing the program. “I have a clear understanding of the path forward [and] the trajectory of my business,” Navarro said.

SCPS launched its second cohort of student business owners this month. The program will also expand to four other CUNY schools, which will oversee eight more cohorts by the end of 2021. The other CUNY schools are the College of Staten Island, Queens College, Manhattan’s Baruch College, and the New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn.

Meanwhile, Verizon and Lehman College hope the educational mentoring program template can be used to attract more small business owners from underrepresented groups like cohort student business owners, Kyana Beckles, who leads the digital human resources testing firm, Leverage Assessments, and Branden Baskin, founder and president of the educational start-up, Vivid Imagination.

“I had a great time—the mentors helped guide me in the next journey of my business,” said Baskin, who anticipates taking advantage of Verizon’s offer to continue working with cohort members on new product offers, and providing further business assistance.

Navarro agreed. “I also came away with knowledge, ideas, motivation, and support from the others in my group too. It was fantastic!” he said.