Journal March 31-April 18

Wow the past few weeks have been exciting to say the least! I spent three days in Abuja attending an African Entrepreneurship seminar, which brought together researchers, educators, students, policy makers, practitioners, business service providers, and other key stakeholders to discuss, strategize, and share information related to enterprise development in Africa. The focus of the conference was to, “explore ways in which to encourage research, policy development and the practice of new venture creation and innovation across difference African countries.”

Prior to the seminar, the abstracts of discussion papers were submitted and made available to interested attendees on the following topics:
· Entrepreneurship and Economic Development Policy in Africa
· Entrepreneurship Education in Africa
· Managing Innovation in Small and Medium Sized firms in Africa
· Generating and Raising Venture Finance for New Businesses and New Projects
· Social and Community Based Entrepreneurship in Africa

While the conference provided much needed information as to the problems facing Nigeria related to lack of agriculture development, the need for more community participation in enterprise development, the need for higher education institutions to take on more active roles, and how peace and conflict impact entrepreneurship development, a component lacking from seminar was the identification of practical solutions based on their extensive background research and information. However lacking, I learned quite a lot about entrepreneurship development both from the national and international perspectives and enjoyed the opportunity to network with program attendees and, as a result, was able to set-up follow-up meetings with SMEDAN and the Nigerian Export Promotion Council. Both meetings highlighted each office’s community outreach and ways they could be apart of enterprise development training programs outside of Abuja and Lagos. They both expressed interests and NEPC even expressed interests in public-private partnerships that promote the development of value-added indigenous products in the global market.

Following this seminar I met with AIESEC students from Cameroon who were interning with Ms. Taiwo an CEDAR in the training of University Of Ibadan Students on enterprise development. After meeting the students we attended a Distance Learning Session, led by Ms. Taiwo on policy development in Nigeria. Again I enjoyed these opportunities to interact with students and hear their perspectives. More specifically I liked the way Ms. Taiwo framed the session as interactive, drawing from participants’ knowledge while adding expertise to the commentary.

In continuing to work on the design and implementation of an enterprise development program, I’ve assisted the Bridge Networking in firming up the background and curriculum as well as program logistics.

Finally, I was mostly excited about facilitating a session on “Sales Pitch” with AIESEC students. This interactive session provided students the opportunity to not only learn about marketing their products or services to potential investors. The students enjoyed the session and I too enjoyed working with them!