Hewlett Packard Enterprise has announced the HPE Diversity Start-up Programme to provide equitable access to the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform for women-owned and minority-owned start-ups. The initiative was developed in collaboration with Alpha3 Cloud, a HPE Partner Ready service provider that specialises in offering hybrid cloud, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) cloud solutions to organisations of all sizes.
The HPE Diversity Start-up Programme provides complimentary cloud service vouchers through service provider partners to start-ups owned by women and minorities. Those companies are then able to consume HPE GreenLake services to deliver digital solutions to their customers more economically and effectively.
“Alpha3 Cloud can now optimise and transform their customers’ businesses and investments through HPE GreenLake, while also transforming their own business,” said Alexia Clements, Vice President Worldwide GTM, HPE GreenLake Cloud Services. “The HPE Diversity Start-up programme enables cloud service providers to ramp and scale cloud platforms quickly to better meet customer needs.”
With data centres in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern Virginia, Alpha3 Cloud offers cloud services built on HPE GreenLake to start-ups with month-to-month subscription models and no vendor lock-in. It has uniquely tailored its cloud services to offer flexible and seamless provisioning that grows with the business.
“Our research has shown that in the next decade, many new start-ups and high-growth businesses will be founded by minority- and women-owned businesses and these companies face significant challenges accessing capital and services required for success,” said Ron Sacks, CEO, Alpha3 Cloud. “Our collaboration with HPE Greenlake enables us to support this emerging business community with just-right provisioning, efficient cost management and the ability to integrate our own Value Added services as needed.”
Joyuus, a newly launched digital health innovator, is a women-owned start-up co-founded by Kristine Merz and Lisa Marceau and was selected as the inaugural company to join the HPE Diversity Start-up Programme. The National Institute of Health-backed start-up is developing a web app that offers accessible well-being resources for new mothers to support their postpartum journey. In addition to cloud services, Alpha3 Cloud provides Joyuus with personalised consultation, complementary IT guidance and security and compliance support for federal privacy regulations.
Joyuus’ web app requires a multi-cloud strategy to support its business operations and enable collaboration across a distributed team of developers, clinical experts, designers and content experts. Additionally, it required a flexible system operating in a secure, cloud-based environment to support a remote workforce.
“As a start-up, resource allocation is critical to our success and since working with Alpha3 Cloud, we have gained invaluable IT guidance and access to cloud services securely and affordably that make it easier for us to grow our business,” said Marceau. “HPE’s commitment to supporting underrepresented groups through this programme is something that the rest of the corporate and investment world is failing to do and the HPE Diversity Start-up Programme is truly commendable.”