African enterprise under the spotlight

  • November 11, 2011

African Innovation Prize organises workshop for Global Entrepreneurship Week.

A Gates scholar is organising an evening celebrating and discussing entrepreneurship development in Africa and beyond as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week next week.

Julia Fan Li [2008] has organised the event, which takes place at Caius College from 7pm on Tuesday night, to promote the work of the African Innovation Prize and Rwanda Entrepreneurship Week which she helped to set up.

Guests include members of the Rwandan High Commission. The event will give an overview of the current state of entrepreneurship development in Africa/Rwanda and the role the African Innovation Prize plays in this. Opportunities for Cambridge students will also be advertised.

The African Innovation Prize (AIP) was set up two years ago to encourage entrepreneurship as a key part of university education in Africa. AIP aims to provide entrepreneurship training, local mentorship and seed-funding to innovative business ideas.

This year, the practical lessons of the business planning competition were bolstered by the inaugural Rwanda Entrepreneurship Week 25th-30th July 2011. Led by Rwandan entrepreneurs, but organised by a team from Cambridge, it introduced over 150 of the brightest Rwandan students from five different Rwandan institutions to the fundamentals of running and leading their own business.

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