Deadline: 06-Sep-20
UNITAR has launched ‘Social Entrepreneurship Training Programme’ for women in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan to empower them with the knowledge and skills of entrepreneurship and mentor them to develop self-led entrepreneurial initiatives and solutions (social or commercial) that will harness digital technologies to address socio-economic challenges in their respective countries.
The programme is being conducted with the financial support of the Government and the People of Japan.
Program Goals
By the end of this training, following the completion of webinars, along with e-courses, participants should be able to:
- Evaluate (social) entrepreneurship in the context of their country’s sustainable growth and development;
- Appraise their own entrepreneurial and leadership style and motivations;
- Implement a design thinking methodology to identify and solve issues or needs through (social) entrepreneurship and innovation;
- Formulate and test each element of the business model for a (social) entrepreneurial venture;
- Lead the creation of a culture and practice of innovation at organizational level;
- Apply contemporary leadership and management practices to dynamic entrepreneurial contexts;
- Outline key elements of stakeholder identification, integration, engagement and enrolment in financing new ventures, building partnerships and the co-founding team;
- Apply impactful communication techniques to various contexts;
- Develop a competitive strategy for their venture.
- Discuss the key components of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
- Outline existing opportunities and challenges in regard to promoting gender equality;
- Explore how Covid-19 pandemic affected every aspect of our life and what challenges and opportunities it presented to both early stage entrepreneurs and established business leaders
Areas
The overall course is designed to encourage participants to take action across six areas:
- Nurture an Entrepreneurial Mindset: Participants learn the entrepreneurial process of identifying opportunities and mobilizing resources to bring a new enterprise to life. They are exposed to social and commercial enterprise examples of international best practice and encouraged to reflect on and develop their own entrepreneurial style and capacity.
- Find a Problem Worth Solving: Participants gain the tools and techniques of design thinking and lean startup to create desirable, feasible, viable and sustainable solutions that solve customer needs and problems. Design Thinking is crucial to entrepreneurship nowadays which focuses on building empathy, identifying needs through customer insights, ideation, prototyping and experimentation.
- Build a Scalable and Sustainable Enterprise: Participants learn the design a business model appropriate for their enterprise and customer segment(s), evaluate revenue models to capture value in all its forms and formulate financial projections appropriate for social or commercial enterprises. They also learn how to pitch with impact in winning funding and investment.
- Lead and Manage for Growth: Participants are exposed to contemporary theories and practices of leadership. They are encouraged to appraise their own leadership style and to reflect on their competences and preferences in identifying and building partnerships and the co-founding team. Further participants learn to appreciate the role of stakeholder engagement in building early stage credibility and driving growth.
- Craft the Competitive and Risk Strategy: Participants develop an understanding of the tools and techniques of competitive and risk mitigating strategy. They learn how to appraise the competitive landscape and develop competitive strategies to win whilst mitigating the different types of risk they are exposed to.
- Foster Enterprise-Wide Innovation: Participants learn how to decipher the many types of innovation that lead to competitive advantage and enterprise growth. They learn the practice of innovation management. They are exposed to international best practice in the design and management of innovation initiatives and programmes.
Target Participants
- The target audience are passionate and potential entrepreneurs from the Horn of Africa including members of Small and Medium Enterprises, government agencies and academic institutions. This programme is open only for women from Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan.
Eligibility Criteria
Participants will be selected through an open call for applications based on specific criteria including:
- Female and aged (between 18 and 40);
- Geographical and sectoral representation within the country;
- Deep interest in entrepreneurship and frontier technology;
- Good oral and written English skills; and
- Keen passion to learn by doing and highly motivated to succeed to provide positive impact to the society.
*UNITAR strongly encourage and welcome all those women with solid understanding and experience in engineering or technology. The application process is open to anyone living inside the target countries, however, preference will be given to locally situated nationals of the target countries. The programme will be delivered in English and consists of two phases covering the full cycle of idea to market entrepreneurship stages by providing training, mentoring, pitching, operationalization plan, and outcome evaluation.
For more information, visit https://apply.unitar.org/prog/womens_entrepreneurship/