A “million dollars” for women entrepreneurship

The Women Entrepreneurship Promotion program challenges participants to design an initiative that increases opportunities for women entrepreneurs. During the three-week program, they meet different experts who share information, data, practical expertise and articles via workshops, lectures and field visits.

WEP participants are stimulated to reflect on the broader macro- and socio-economic context that impacts on development, women and entrepreneurship.

The Women in Business Lounge offers WEP students the opportunity to test and present their ideas to a ‘live’ audience of regional female entrepreneurs. For this year’s edition on November 20, the following business women were present

A short introduction round revealed the enormous extent of ‘girl/women power’ in the room and everybody was excited to start with the coaching sessions.

Each of the local business women coached one or two participants of the program to help them to further improve their business plan.

Overview of the business plans:

  1. Creating an incubator for women in rural areas that operate informal home-based micro businesses (handicrafts / embroidery) Armenia, Pakistan and Algeria
  2. Government Policy: how to advocate (and audit) for government policies that work for women entrepreneurs in Bhutan and Nigeria
  3. Empowering through entrepreneurship women in Nigeria who are victims of domestic violence create support networks through religious leaders)
  4. Setting up an (social business) agency that facilitates retired professionals (from all over the world) to come to Ecuador and support community development (while enjoying the country as tourists)
  5. Empowerment of rural women entrepreneurs in the textile (Pakistan) and cassava (Nigeria) value chain.
  6. Creating an ‘angel investment network’ in Pakistan to match young entrepreneurs with female investors

The participants presented their ideas in two-minute pitches to the full audience and received valuable feedback.

The best pitch was awarded by the jury, composed of the local business women, with a virtual million dollars as a means of encouragement. In-depth deliberations among the coaches resulted in the nomination of two initiatives: Ms. Arinola Moshood: Empowerment of rural women entrepreneurs in the cassava industry in Nigeria and Ms. Aderonke Abokede for the creation of a Woman Entrepreneurship Association in Nigeria.

On 21 November, the WEP students traveled to Rotterdam to witness the international finales of the “Women In Business Challenge at the Van Nelle Factory. Five female entrepreneurs from South Africa, Peru, Colombia and Rwanda were invited to present and pitch their business models at the Van Nelle Factory Rotterdam in front of an expert jury and an audience of investors, bankers, entrepreneurship trainers and MSM students from the Women Entrepreneurship Program 2014.

Organized by BiD Network and ING Bank, the “Women in Business Challenge” is an online competition that supports women entrepreneurs from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America by offering them with coaching, visibility and funding. Suzana Moreira from South Africa was the winner of this year’s edition. She received a prize of € 5000,- that she will use to develop her company Mowoza. Mowoza offers a simple-to-use mobile commerce service in South Africa and Mozambique that aims to give informal cross-border traders instant access to products and services in a convenient and efficient manner.

MSM research fellow Saskia Vossenberg gave a presentation on ‘Supporting Women Entrepreneurship: Is Financing Enough?’ and Zairah Khan from ViveInvest discussed the global gender gap in finance and how investing in women’s businesses pays off.

For the WEP students it was an eye-opening experience to witness how business owners try to build international networks, new relationships and hopefully, find an investor.

We would like to thank the external companies and the female entrepreneurs for sharing their practical knowledge and experiences on becoming successful entrepreneurs with participants of the WEP program.

We wish The Women Entrepreneurship Promotion students good luck in pursuing their ideas and encourage them to realize their projects.

These activities were part of the Women Entrepreneurship PromotionExecutive Program. In this executive program we explore the question: why does the gender gap in entrepreneurship persist and what can we do about it? During the three weeks program, students are challenged to ask questions such as: how do economic trends, markets and policies create different possibilities and obstacles for male or female entrepreneurs?

For those who are only interested in understanding the concepts and theoretical backgrounds of gender and entrepreneurship in the developing economy MSM offers a one-week WEP Fast-Track program.

Want to participate in next year’s WEP program? There are currently some very appealing scholarships available from the Dutch Government! Apply before 18 February!

Further reading
Women entrepreneurship promotion at Global Entrepreneurship Week and elsewhere
MSM seminar looks at best policies and practices in promoting women’s entrepreneurship

 

Maastricht School of Management | Tapijnkazerne 11, 6211 ME Maastricht, The Netherlands | www.msm.nl | msm-infomail@maastrichtuniversity.nl