Inspire Africa Entrepreneurship Training Program

Inspire Africa is an Entrepreneurial Training Program (ETP) that is identifying upstart talents and providing training and mentorship to help young people launch and grow their businesses with an eye toward sustained success.

The program ensures disadvantaged Youths are better equipped to secure employment/create sustainable enterprises for social impact.

Youth unemployment, which currently sits at approximately 50 percent across the continent is among the greatest challenges facing the continent and holding back the innate potential of Africa’s disadvantaged youths. 

Small and medium enterprises are agreeable a critical instrument to addressing the challenges of youth unemployment, sustainable economic growth and job creation. Statistics reveal that 80% of SMEs/start-ups in Africa fail within the first three years of operation due to lack of entrepreneurship education & business management skills.

Our approach exposes Africa’s youths to an innovative thinking process known as Design Thinking(Human Centered Design approach), which we hope will help frame innovative business development concepts to the socio-economic/cultural context of Africa, thereby providing sustainable solutions to communities needs with a goal of creating thousands of jobs for youths.

I wish to scale this program across Africa because I believe Africa is soon becoming the center of attraction for innovation. Spreading the knowledge of the Human Centred Design -Thinking Process to the Disadvantaged youths in Africa who are not aware of this new methodology, will definitely equip them to learn the skills necessary to build/develop innovate and sustainable solutions for the future and thrive in the 21st century. 

I believe Solve will better give me the skills, expertise and know-how to scale this program and spread Design-Thinking Entrepreneurship for youths across Africa.

You can also watch my video on Youtube. Click here

Africa, the world’s youngest region, continues to be confronted with high levels of unemployment, vulnerable employment and working poverty with little signs of potential recovery states the International Labor Organization (ILO). 41 percent of Africa’s population is below the age of 15. Nigeria has about 67 million youths, between the ages of 15 and 35. And 42 percent of these young people are unemployed. Youth unemployment, which currently sits at approximately 50 percent across the continent is among the greatest challenges facing the continent and holding back the innate potential of Africa’s youth. 

Small and medium enterprises are a critical instrument to addressing the challenges of youth unemployment, sustainable economic growth and job creation. Statistics reveal that 80% of SMEs/start-ups in Africa fail within the first three years of operation due to lack of entrepreneurship education&business management skills.

Our approach exposes Africa’s youths to an innovative thinking process known Design Thinking(Human Centred Design approach, in partnership with Dartmouth Dickey Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation), which will help frame innovative business development concepts to the socio-economic/cultural context of Africa,thereby providing sustainable solutions to communities needs with a goal of creating thousands of jobs.

Impact:

The demand is strong and the initial results are promising with 120 youths trained, 20 businesses launched, $70,000 dollars in funds raised for these businesses and 40 jobs created since 2016 (http://preview.mailerlite.com/o1u0w4). We hope to train 1,500 youths and 1,000 jobs created by 2018

Target:

SEX: Male and Female

Country: Nigeria and Across Africa

Age: 18–35

Work Status: Unemployed or Entrepreneur

How we Deploy:

We  roll-out call for application using both free and paid adverts on social media platforms such as www.opportunitiesforafricans.com, www.utibeutim.com, www.opportunitydesk.org, facebook ads, and referrals. For people to register online.

Track the number of participants during our training & workshops - 120 Youths Trained

Track the number of people who participated in the training and launched a new Start-up after the workshop - 20 New Businesses Launched

Track the number of jobs as a result of the start-up's that benefited from our programmes. - 40 Jobs Created

Our Solution is a practical training education focused on learning and applying skills in Human Centered Design Thinking, Business Model Validation, Investor Preparedness, Financial Management, Leadership and Team Building for young Africans who are passionate about launching or growing their own businesses or non-governmental organizations to promote job creation, sustainable businesses, economic growth and development.

African youths are not aware of new methodologies such as the Human Centered Design Thinking and business institutions in Africa do not teach this process

Video that explains how the solution is focused on Human Centred Design Thinking

We take our entrepreneurs through a design thinking process for 2 weeks, focused on the Human Centred Design approach and utilising resources from Dartmouth Dickey Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. 

The students use this approach to design a project, build and demonstrate a prototype and then pitch that prototype to the judges on the final day of the program to receive feedback and suggestions for scale. 

See Inspire Africa Folks working on their group prototype

Most of our trainings, workshop or boot camp affordable and sometimes free. 

We usually roll-out call for application using paid adverts and social media platforms such as www.opportunitiesforafricans.com, www.utibeutim.com, www.opportunitydesk.org, facebook ads, and referrals from trusted organizations.  - they have a combined membership of 100,000+ members on their subscription list and social media outlets.

Each ETP is a two weeklong practical training education and We also host an abbreviated 2-day free entrepreneurship training programme every month tagged “Launch Into the Global Stage” focused on youths in Nigeria and across Africa to promote job creation, sustainable businesses, economic growth and development.

As a proponent of sustainability, we have designed a post-fellowship support program for participants of the 2-week and 2-day training, where all our beneficiaries will have the opportunity to engage with a mentor on MicroMentor, connect to internships, access start-up capital and even share a collaborative work space.  

Inspire Africa will also ensure that there is availability and willingness of the local partners to sustain activities through the mainstreaming of the ETP activities in their regular work plans. 

We received support from US Embassy, Lagos to develop the Inspire Africa Train-The-Trainers Entrepreneurship Project. This will help expand & improve our capacity building seminar and allow us to provide relevant and innovative teaching expertise to 1,500 young entrepreneurs and 1000 new SMEs we will be working with in 2017/18 year.

We’ll have an expanded training team that will aid in the larger Inspire Africa program/vision and the sustainability of that effort.

1. Funds

2. Access to Quality Material resources for prototyping our entrepreneurs’ project during workshop so as to get instant feedback.   

http://www.facebook.com/weinspireafricans

https://www.micromentor.org/blog/serial-social-entrepreneur-in-nigeria-integrates-micromentor-into-business-leadership-program/

https://web.facebook.com/WeInspireAfricans/posts/1345359625527110?_rdc=1&_rdr

I wish to spread the knowledge of Human Centred Design -Thinking Process to Disadvantaged youths in Africa who are not aware of this new methodology, so as to learn skills that will drive entrepreneurship, critical thinking, and adaptability and equip them to innovate sustainable solutions for the future and thrive in the 21st century. 

Therefore, I'm applying to Solve because i wish to have access to resource, gain the expertise and know-how to scale my project and spread the Design-Thinking Entrepreneurship for youths across Africa.

1. US Embassy, Lagos

2. Dartmouth Dickey Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, New Hampshire (Contact - Amy Newcomb)

3. Empatico (Contact - Rich Nadworny)

4. Solve Business School, France

5. Global Good Fund

6. LEAP Africa (Social Innovators Programme SIP)

7. Micro Mentor Organization

8. Prikkle Academy

1. LEAP Africa

2. Empatico