"There is nothing more rewarding than seeing a problem being solved, so mentoring is about providing help to others to solve their problems."

"It's really refreshing to have accelerators in the mix now that can help people understand what it takes to be a startup, how to be a startup, how to speak to investors, how to pitch to investors, how to talk to customers and how to get feedback."

"With today's economic crisis raging throughout Europe, initiatives like the Lisbon Challenge for startups, investment, innovation and entrepreneurship are really important."

"The Lisbon Challenge Accelerator program was extremely valuable for Speecheo. Thanks to the the insane quantity and quality of mentors they have, in addition to the speakers and CEOs that we could reach, we made impressive progress. "

"InEvent merged and simplified its business model in these months of the program due to networking with mentors and businesses. Now we have a much more comprehensive view of our business and our market."

"Feedcruncher is turning into such a better product because of this experience, not to mention all the instant promotion\media visibility we're getting from it. Did I mention it's also networking paradise?"

"We developed our platform from scratch in 1 month. Here we are totally focused on development and now we have 9 companies using it. No doubts that Lisbon Challenge gave us the acceleration and the focus that we needed."

"Working with all the teams from different countries, different cultures, different points of view, their feedback was extremely important and helpful. Plus, we got 17 media mentions since we got in."

"Lisbon Challenge is like a practical accelerated MBA for entrepreneurs. It exposes your team and idea to a lot of feedback from mentors, prospective customers, media attention (we got 14 media features so far, including TV!) and accelerates the speed of your business by 10 times."

"Lisbon Challenge connected us with world class mentors and investors, provided us with the environment to push our startups to the next level, gave us lasting friendships and professional contacts, but most of all, we got to work hard and play harder in the fantastic city of Lisbon!"

"The true value of the LC lies in its Mentors network, their input and feedback is invaluable."

"At the end of the second week we were already receiving e-mails from abroad and we are already answering potential clients and, if this is not acceleration, I don't know what is."

"The Lisbon Challenge accelerated 74 early-stage tech startups from around the world (Europe, US, India, Brazil, Chile, and more) and brought the 10 best companies they found to New York City for this program"

"Lisbon's heart is in San Francisco-style startups"

"Lisbon Challenge gathers in the Portuguese capital 75 startups, and more than 200 international mentors and investors."