After West and East Africa, Stanford University is heading to southern Africa. Its business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, has just signed an agreement with the South African mining company De Beers Group for the launch in 2018 of two training programs for young entrepreneurs in the sub-region. Objective: to refine the skills and abilities of young bosses.
New investment for entrepreneurial youth in southern Africa. The Stanford University Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business has signed a partnership with the South African mining company De Beers Group for the launch of two training programs, she announced on Friday August 18 in a relayed press release. by Apo.
Extending over three years for an investment of $ 3 million, the seed processing program and the Stanford Go-to-Market program aim to sharpen the skills and better empower entrepreneurs in these countries. The first consists of a year of intensive sessions on several subjects including leadership, strategy, business ethics, accounting, marketing or even value chain innovations. The second, which will be delivered exclusively by Stanford GSB faculty, takes the form of intensive one-week business start-up training.
“We are delighted to be working with young young entrepreneurs from Southern Africa. As with our experiences in East and West Africa, we learn as much as we teach, ”said Jesper Sørensen, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford GSB and faculty director at Stanford Seed, an initiative of the Stanford University led by Stanford GSB.
An initiative that has proven itself
Indeed, the American university is thus on its third sub-regional experience in Africa, after having implemented the seed processing program in West Africa in 2013 and in East Africa in 2016. A large number of the beneficiaries of this training were also invited to take part in the World Entrepreneurship Summit organized in August 2016 in the United States by the American State Department and the White House, with the participation of the former President Barack Obama and several bosses in Silicon Valley. On the sidelines of the meeting, Afolabi Abiodun, beneficiary of the program and CEO of SB Telecoms – a communication company based in Nigeria, testified to the contribution of this program to his company: “in the space of two years, my company, which at its creation employed a staff of 10, now has 39 people directly and nearly 150 indirectly ”.
Today, Stanford GSB is hoping for the same success for its program in Southern Africa. “While the delivery of these programs results in growth in business activities such as in other regions where we operate, I already foresee a very big impact for this initiative [in southern Africa],” says Jesper Sørensen.
For now, the seed processing program will be aimed at entrepreneurs in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. And the latter will be able to submit their application files from August 17 to October 6, 2017. The Stanford Go-to-Market, on the other hand, will initially be only intended for budding entrepreneurs established in Botswana, the Stanford GSB still studying the possibility to open it up to other countries in the sub-region. The intensive training week is scheduled for March 2018.
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