Global River Center (GRC)

Problem: Africa has the youngest and most rapidly growing population, with an average age of 19.4. these young people are stagnating as there is a lack of opportunities in the non-urban areas. Therefore, they move to the cities searching for opportunities, but the cities can not keep up and most end up in the slums, worse off then if they had stayed in their home region.

Solution: GRC want to bring prosperity to non-urban areas through combining learning, trade, entertainment and community services in a cutting-edge sustainable building. The synergy between these elements creates opportunities for personal and communal development. Contributing to inclusive social and economic development by offering income-generating skills development through in-person training, online-learning and incubator facilities, focusing on what the specific area needs/wants.

Scaling: GRC will scale to 200+ centers across Sub-Saharan Africa, positively changing the lives for people in these areas and stopping the city migration.

The urbanization of the African continent happens at the expense of the youth. Africa is urbanizing more rapidly than anywhere else. It is home to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population. By 2030, nearly 5 billion (61%) of the world’s 8.1 billion people will live in cities. Africa’s 1.3 billion citizens will likely double in number by 2050 and more than 80% of that increase will occur in cities, especially slums. 70% of Africans are under 30 and they account for 40% of the workforce and 60% of the unemployed. It is a time bomb for both stability and economy (an economic backlog). Adding the additional unemployment consequences of the Covid-19 crises the urgency to respond to this where the young people are is emphasized. A recent study made by the African Union (AU) states that about 20 million jobs are at risk in Africa as the continent’s economies are projected to decrease due to the covid-19 pandemic, according to an AU study: “Nearly 20 million jobs, both in the formal and informal sectors, are threatened with destruction on the continent if the situation continues”. GRC want to make non-urban areas flourish, thus stopping and even reversing the city-migration.

Global River Center is a commercial impact-business working through social-enterprise terms, combining trade, learning, entertainment and community services (including health services) in a cutting-edge sustainable building, built in non-urban areas in Sub-Saharan Africa – It is an innovative and creative concept of a multi-functional center that works through the synergy of these known elements, which cannot work in their own capacity. GRC finds and manages relevant partners for each component to enable the synergy between the components. The learning hub is of great focus, offering income-generating skills development that, when working together with the incubator, enables the people to develop their own businesses and create inclusive social and economic growth in the communities. GRC also enables democratization through the GRC radio, the connectivity and digital literacy training - empowering the people to discuss topics of their choice, find valuable information and to state their opinions. It will be a state-of-the-art building with a flexible design, using renewable energy e.g. solar panels and/or wind turbines. We offer WIFI within the center and will establish connectivity opportunities at a reduced price for the catchment area. GRC ensures local ownership through engaging the population in the creation, management and maintenance of the center.

GRC will serve people in non-urban Sub-Saharan Africa, especially the youth. Moreover, it will support international businesses in getting to Africa, using the center as a launchpad and offering businesses corporate volunteering. The center is a meeting place, a space for learning and for enhancing social and economic development. It offers trainings in relevant income-generating skills, enabling people in optimising, becoming sustainable, creating jobs and/or creating own businesses. GRC is an impact business improving the quality of life in non-urban Africa – starting in Ghana and scaling to 200+ centers across Sub-Saharan Africa. GRC ensures local ownership as every stakeholder in Africa we have presented to are eager to have a center – we have been given the right to use 26.000 m2 in Ghana, by the paramount chief of Bompata, who is a former UN ambassador for Ghana. GRC are doing feasibility studies to understand the needs and wants of the population and are engaging the youth through a network/community between Ghana and the Nordic. GRC is for the people by the people, meeting the people in their needs and aspirations, and will only succeed through engagement of the people and by having an impact.

With non-urban areas stagnating and the youth migrating to cities for work, ending up in slums in worse conditions then before, GCR will improve the quality of life through offering opportunities to develop these untapped communities, stopping the city migration and enabling learning and developing job opportunities. GRC will equip the people with durable income-generating skills, offer digital literacy, technological solutions, economy training, waste to value courses amongst other, and a range of relevant online courses. Thereby GRC relates to the challenge through contributing to social and economic development in non-urban Africa, by enabling progress and increasing possibilities for job-creation.

The vision of GRC is to improve quality of life (all genders, religions, cultures etc.) for particularly the youth in non-urban Africa. It enhances local and inclusive economic development by its innovative and unique feature of combining known elements (Trade (shopping-mall), Entertainment (sports café), Learning (vocational training) and Community (community-centers) that prove not to be relevant nor viable or sustainable in the current forms in their own right. But the combination and economic viability assured by the dynamics of a social enterprise makes this concept ground-breaking and relevant for modern-day non-urban Sub-Saharan Africa.

Its innovation lies in the synergy of the components. The learning hub is a main component providing future-secured skills development and on-the-job training, enabling the people to develop the skills matching the local opportunities for development and local job prospects. Furthermore, it is in the local adaption of the selected skills training that enables the skills-matching to function on a long-term scale. Furthermore we introduce a point system, teaching basic economy skills by giving points for undertaking tasks to maintain the center, the points can then be exchanged for services in the center. 
The engagement and mental ownership of the center is what sets this center apart and makes it an innovative solution.

 GRC will secure, increase and support decent employment in the countries of the centers and for partnering companies from all around the world, delivering know-how and using the centers as business incubators and/or Launchpads for implementation of the internationalization strategy- their expansion to Africa.

The GRC concept will be in a sustainable building, using renewable energy. GRC will mainly rely on solar panels.

We will use heatmaps to look at behavior to adjust the design and we ask for data in return for using the WIFI.

We are on SoMe platforms, creating communities and engaging the users.

 We are in contact with google for learning platforms and looking into google loon balloons for connectivity, as well as local telco providers and international partners.
For learning and income generating skills use of computers and learning spaces are offered. There will be provided drone training, AI training, coding and general digital literacy among other technology based trainings. Access to online courses and online libraries are provided.

We are developing a point system, teaching basic economy where points are offered for undertaking different tasks in the center - the points can then be exchanged for food, entertainment and other services from the center

Each center has a radio station enabling democratization. it will include podcasts saved in an online archive, and the radio will be available online so it can reach out globally. 

The centers also provides a basic cinema, streaming movies and sports etc. 

There will be a need for management systems, which are still to be agreed upon, as well as payment systems and accounting systems.

These are the general technological solutions, but as we are combining many elements there is need for many technological solutions which are still in process of being chosen.

Solar panels are widely used and have proofed themselves to work.

Heatmaps are used in many malls and stores to inform on customer behavior - to understand the traffic in the center and how best to design the center.

SoMe is widely used also to create communities and engage people.

Learning platforms in general are widely used and have especially proofed themselves to work during the pandemic where they became necessary. coursera.org is an example of a well functioning platform.

Online libraries are also not something new and works well - e.g. lots of universities provides this.

The point system is a new solution we are developing, based on the frequent flyer points system, where points are earned by flying and exchanged for goods or flight ticket - we however will offer to earn points through doing tasks e.g. setting up for the cinema, doing gardening, cleaning after an event or tutoring among other tasks, the points can then be used within the center. this will also be a way of teaching basic economy, and ensure mental ownership for the center as the users will be taking care of the center. 

Radio stations are widely used in Africa, as well as globally, and online radio has also proofed to work well - as well as podcasts and archives for podcasts.

The cinema will be a projector on a white wall, streaming movies and sports. This will require good connection and licenses for streaming, as well as the projector and speakers.

LFA:

Inputs:
Resources invested in the project from Study to implementation (financial, human etc.) Relevant partnerships and land.

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Sets of Activities:
Finance, build, maintain, operate The River centres: River Trading hub River Learning hub River Entertainment River Community hub Infrastructure

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Outputs:
# Centres built and operated # people trained # Events and people Entertained / informed  # increased engagement of people.

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Outcomes:
#Transaction costs (for People & local business) saved #Jobs created # new businesses established #Marriages (dwellers) increased #Communal activity increased.

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Immediate impact:
#People (gender and age) got or improved income - #youth included in economy. #Businesses/ local resource based value chains established etc. Local economic activity increased by 10-20%

Development Impact Targets:
Reversing Urbanization # % of young people who planned to leave stayed. Town population broken down in gender and age groups increased by # % (who moved back from urban settings).

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Action plan:
• Feasibility study • Pre-use of donated land •Mobilizing strategic business partners •Secure financing •Engage construction partners •Build 1st center in Bompata •Launch, operating •Repeat and scale up

Currently we are activating youth in Ghana, around 10-20 people, to do the pre-feasibility study and become part of the GRC community.

I one year, we will have created job opportunities for the construction of the first center in Bompata, Ghana. We will have activated partnerships between Ghana and the Nordic countries and created job possibilities for Nordic companies. We will have carried out activities on the donated land, for entertainment but also for developing skills and for sharing know-how.  Furthermore, we will have created a GRC community in Ghana and in the Nordic countries.

in five years we will have built 10-15 centers, serving 10-15 areas populated with 7.500 people, within a catchment area of 100.000 people. And we will further scale to 200+ centers.  

Global River Center will have a great impact on the development of non-urban areas. From building future secured skills for the individual, to the prospects of using these skills to develop the communities and thus increasing local economic activity. GRC will reduce/stop the city migration of young people, and thereby reduce the overpopulation and slums in the cities and increase the development and quality of life in non-urban areas. GRC contributes directly to the SDGs, namely SDG 1,3,4,5,8,9,10,11,12,16 and17. Moreover, we have an effect on the remaining SDGs. On a longer term the skills training, income generation and development will contribute to reduce poverty, increase agriculture thus reduce hunger, enhance climate awareness, enhance the drive to use of clean energy sources and aid towards developing/establishing clean water solutions and sanitation.      

As a true impact-business GRC will not succeed if we do not create an impact. The usage of the center is directly connected to the impact. Succeeding will entail that the communities establish ownership for the center, in doing so inclusive social and economic development will occur. 

In one year we want to have the construction of the first center commenced and the preparations done for the following two centers. In 3 years we will break even, and in 5 years we plan to have 10-15 centers on the ground and planned the next 20 centers. 

GRC is a 'Center-in-a-Box' concept, with sufficient local/regional adaptation, securing the needed local ‘mental’ ownership. E.g. choice of strategic partners, suppliers and design according to wishes expressed by key stakeholders like paramount-chief of Bompata, Ghana.

As center-in-a-box concept, it enables the scalability and replicability prospects to be unlimited. Our first goal is 200 centres in non-urban Sub-Saharan Africa.
Provided the 25% own/75% external funding scenario is realized, the first center will break even after 3 years and enable us to establish the organization and be in process with 3 centers. Two in Ghana, one in Liberia – with some offset in time of start of the process - enabling GRC to reinvest and scale-up and thereby assure the large-scale impact and fiscal value generation simultaneously. 

The main barrier we thought we had was acquiring land, this have been overcome.

The technological solutions will need to be validated and we will have partners and experts to help with this.

We have gotten very positive responses and the stakeholders emphasize importance and demand of the centers. We have been given plots of land for the first centres. The paramount-chief Nana Effah-Apenteng of Bompata, Ghana provided 26.000m2 of fertile land. We have been promised land in 1-2 years’ time in other regions too. In addition, we have been given a plot in the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia of 5000 m2. We experience increasing interest for GRC and are certain the land for our 200 centres will be made available. 

Through the initial investment, GRC progressed with finalizing the concept, acquiring land, finding relevant local and international partners and are in the process of getting expressions-of-interest from further partners. GRC developed an experienced team with 60 years of experience and an advisory-board with more than 200 years-experience altogether. GRC also started a social-media campaign promoting the concept.  

Support from NOPEF is granted, BUSAC and AfDB expressed interest in supporting the pilot center and AfDB financing the replication throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. GRC is will establish partnerships with skills and capacity-building partners relevant and demanded by the communities surrounding the centers.

Partnerships with internet-providers (well-established regional Telco-companies) will secure stable WIFI. This will be the attraction for the youth and a way to inspire to utilize the facilities and training offers in the learning-hub and broadcasting from the community radiostation, combined with services for the shop and food-stall tenants, entertaining events generates the necessary traffic to secure the economic feasibility.

Co-owner and CEO: Elizabeth Boye

Researcher: Sandra Petersen

Co-owner and Chairman of the board: Michael Mathiesen

Advisory board:

Fredua Dankwa (Country coordinator Ghana), Kaliefah Soko Sackor (CEO Bambwa Group Liberia), DJ Black (Broadcast Journalist. 500k followers on social media), Karol Marcinkowski (Civil Engineer, International development consultant), Jørgen Skov (International retail professional), Morten Schmidt (Award winning architect, with extensive international experience), Kathrine Heiberg (Behavior based shopping mall design professional), Niels Christian Nielsen (Education specialist), Stine Birk (Institutional investors and Public-Private Partnership, infrastructure projects), Kjeld Lercke (IT and AI specialist) and Niels Lindsay Vinding (Energy economics, energy strategy, and sustainable energy).

Elizabeth Boye is the renowned Responsible Business and Cross-Sector Partnerships for Growth professional. She has more than 26 years of experience working in various Southern, Western, Eastern African and South Eastern countries for an impressive range of governments, international corporations and development institutions. She has decades of work experience from Africa with multi-stakeholder management, establishing economic incentive based collaborative processes between the public and private sectors, as well as a passion for making inclusive development in Africa happen.

Michael Mathiesen holds more than 30 years international business experience, with focus on Information Technology, Telecom and eCommerce. He has been hands-on involved in more than 325 international investments, 2 of them becoming Unicorns.
Michael is currently engaged as CEO of Bambwa Group, a Nordic-African investment company. He is using his expertise as a global business leader and his experience from over 10 years working on the African continent to help establish a new wave of cross-continent investment, development and economic bridge-building.

Sandra Petersen has a broad background with a B.Sc. in Information Science and Cultural mediation, where she did a field study on Zambia’s possibilities to become an information society. Moreover, she has an MA in Peace, Development, Security and International Conflict Transformation gaining experience in multi-stakeholder management and engagement.

Each of the advisory board members are experienced specialists within the different components of the center, all together they have 100+ years of experience in the respective fields of the concept.

Bambwa Group, Venture capital firm, investment, part owner of Global River Center.

Niras, Engineering consultancy company, GRC partner in advising on developing the construction of the center.

Schmidt, Hammer, Lassen architect, Architects, GRC partner in designing the center.

Access2Innovation, partnership platform, GRC partner in creating partnerships with other potential partners.

IT-Branche foreningen, IT organisation for IT companies, Supportive partner.

Rotary - Sponsoring computers and GRC partner in the learning hub.

Growth Africa, Incubator services - GRC Partner.

Creative Business Network, innovative/creative network, GRC partner.

Danicom, radio service, GRC Partner for the GRC Radio.

Re-Team, Shopping mall experts, GRC partner.

Fooducer, B2B platform, GRC partner

We are currently in contact with the following, proposing partnerships and/or support:

Google, In contact with for learning platform and possible technical solutions.

DGE, Environment and engineering company.

Lulu Lab, Sexual and reproductive health learning games.

Vikinor, Energy company

Bluetown, Internet connectivity

AfDB programmes, African Development Bank programmes

Sweco, Engineering consultancy company

Military works, strengthening of societal functions

Cellpoint, Fintech company

InkGroup, entertainment developer, learning programmes company.

The business model for the Global River Center concept is property letting business. Revenues are generated from rentals and events. Rental to traders, sports and cultural event partners, public and private services, skills training providers (e.g. NGO’s) and actors involved in or related to community engaging activities, such as the community radio station and podcase studio.

GRC will work with core strategic business partners. Partners that are responsible for overseeing the construction of the centers, operation and maintenance of the building/the facilities. Strategic business partners with specific professional expertise in retail, education, entertainment, broadcasting (radio and podcast), sports and not least the IT and communication infrastructure professionals to operate the River Center platform(s).

The ultimate differentiation model assuring the important inclusiveness will be developed as we learn from the first center. Generally, the idea is that established business partners in the trading hub will pay according to ability and the traffic we can attract to the River center.

GRC will work through social enterprise terms, enabling us to scale-up rapidly and thus making as much impact as possible. We have calculated that in 3 years we will break even.

As we rent out spaces, we are a B2B company, though the services we provide by managing the center and the partners coming in and providing services also makes us a B2C business.

We will gain 25% of our budget through foundations, grants and donations - the remaining will be through traditional real estate financing, bank loans, development bank loans and brick and mortar investors.

Our financial sustainability is gained through rental of spaces to partners, sponsorships, selling ad space, selling user behavior information and recommendations in accordance to GDPR, renting spaces to community events (weddings, funerals, town meetings etc.) and through hosting events.   

GRC are applying in order to get known, to get support, advice, find partners and get funding.

MIT solve can become part of this innovative concept, and help in promoting it, so that the right people will see it. Furthermore, we are also seeking funding to take the next steps on the journey.

Our concept is built on finding the right partners for each component. We also would like partners for advice to share their knowledge within the different components and perhaps provide solutions we have not thought of.

A main focus for GRC is the income-generating skills development, preparing the people for the changing job market, enabling them to create own businesses and supporting them digital and technological solutions.

GRC has an enormous social, economic and developmental impact, by providing the combination of trade, entertainment, community services and learning/skills training. This combination in a sustainable building creates a powerhouse, bringing job opportunities, future-secured skills, democratization, inclusive economic development and circular economy.

In building the center itself there is also sharing of knowledge, skills and know-how from the Nordic partners to the local communities, as well as local job creation.

GRC will use the prize to ensure the learning facilities are state of the art, to get the best possible partners onboard, create technological solutions and ensure that the people can get the best and most relevant resources for building skills and accessing future-secured jobs.

A main focus for GRC is the income-generating and future-secured skills development, preparing the people for the changing job market, enabling them to create own businesses and supporting them digital and technological solutions.

The GRC learning hub will include basic literacy training and also digital literacy training - herein including technological courses on coding, flying a drone, AI and other courses.

GRC will use the award for creating the best possible learning spaces, acquiring the needed equipment (hardware, software etc.), getting the most relevant partners onboard and ensuring that we can provide the neccessary resources for enhancing literacy and supporting the people on their journey.

GRC is qualified for this prize as we have the potential to have a great impact on millions of people through scaling throughout sub-Saharan Africa and possibly entering Asia. GRC will only succeed if we create impact, therefore there is equal focus on impact and financial gain. working through social enterprize terms the financial gain will then be reinvested to create further impact.
Also GRC contributes to most of the SDGs as previously mentioned.

GRC will use the prize to ensure the scale up, thus creating the most impact as possible for as many people as possible.