infoDev has partnered with the Government of Finland and Nokia to develop and implement a Programme “Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy”.   This Programme includes an Agribusiness Component, a summary of which has been captured below for your information. 

In order to kick off the Agribusiness Component,  infoDev is planning a workshop to be held in Kampala, Uganda, from 3 – 6 October 2010 to which African Incubators focusing on agriculture/agribusiness may be invited.  Discussions during the workshop will focus on: 

Opportunities/barriers to agribusiness SME development in your country 

The challenges you face as an agribusiness incubator 

In addition, a training programme for agribusiness incubation will be piloted in February 2011 and to which agribusiness incubators may be invited. 

The purpose of this email is to ask for your assistance in identifying African incubators that focus on agribusinesses.  This could be your incubator, or you may be aware of other incubators, not necessarily yet members of AIN, who would benefit from the proposed infoDev activities as described above. 

Please would you, per return email,  forward directly to Jill the contact details of relevant incubators that fit the category as described above. 

Many thanks and with best wishes 

Jill Sawers
Innovation and Business Incubation Consultant to infoDev
email: jsawers@worldbank.org
www.infodev.org 

Non Incubated v Incubated Agribusiness

Summary of Agribusiness Component of “Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy” Programme 

The  agribusiness component of the “Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy”   Program aims to contribute towards achieving three development objectives: 

Increasing sustainable income generating opportunities 

Increasing agricultural productivity and competitiveness 

Increasing the proportion of the price paid by end-consumer that is retained by developing countries for products they produce, for instance by increasing market access and efficiencies along the value chain and expanding local value added agro-processing. 

The agribusiness program is focused on enabling innovative agribusiness entrepreneurs that: 

Provide inputs to primary producers in the form of goods and services; 

Add value to primary products (i.e. agro-processors) and play a “catalytic” role in terms of enhancing efficiency, quality and market access across the value chain. 

In line with infoDev’s mission to help developing countries harness innovation and ICT for sustainable development, the program will include an emphasis on enabling access to and productive use of technologies that are available locally, in the region and internationally. 

The Programme aims to: 

Facilitate a south-south, peer-to-peer agribusiness incubation working group 

Assess global good practices in agribusiness incubation 

Develop a training module on agribusiness incubation 

Develop a business incubation model for African agribusiness and adapt the business model to four countries ( Mozambique, Tanzania and two additional African countries. 

Explore the potential to include agribusiness incubation in business incubation activities in Asia and ECA particularly in Cambodia, Nepal and Vietnam. 

These activities will be supported by the development of “sourcebooks” on ICT and Agriculture and Agricultural Innovation Systems respectively . The agribusiness program will also be linked to the SME Internationalization program, which seeks to leverage infoDev’s business incubation network to facilitate international market access for innovative SME’s, and to the regional m-apps labs, which seek to cultivate innovative mobile applications entrepreneurs.  In the future, infoDev will also explore linkages between its new work in clean technologies and agribusiness. 

Thanks to an invitation from Karine Valin
Coordinator | EuroAfrica-ICT.org EU/FP7 Project
Managing Director | Sigma Orionis | Supporting Collaborative Research & Global Innovation in ICT I gave an update on the growth of our African Incubator Network. A number of interested attendees followed up with requests for additional information.

This initiative is gathering momentum and a number of African – European linkages have been forged. Follow this link to view some particularly good presentations on investment in the backbone to Africa and land-locked countries.

David Cromar
Director, Solvebrand Ltd (United Kingdom)
The African Incubator Network [Click to view ppt presentation]

The Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) fibre-optic cable will stretch 17 000 kilometres underwater from France to South Africa, and is slated to be completed in 2012.

It will connect 23 countries en route, including Spain and Portugal and countries along the western coast of Africa including Mauritania, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Landlocked Mali and Niger will be connected by an overland cable.

France Telecom will contribute $250-million of the $700-million (R5.42-billion) cost of the project, according to the agreement.

“By signing this agreement, France Telecom-Orange is reinforcing its presence on the African continent and helping to reduce the digital divide in the region,” the company said in the statement.

The above reminds me that I have read some time in the past that Google and chosen partners were launching 4 satellites to provide land locked Africans’ access to the Internet.

Can anyone advise us whether this is happening and if so whether it will improve rural access to the Internet?

Take part in the survey on infoDev’s Incubator Support Center (iDISC)

May 2010

infoDev, strives to make sure that their knowledge and collaboration tools are useful to clients and colleagues in the innovation, technology entrepreneurship and international development communities.

The best way to do this is to ask users directly about how infoDEV are doing, how can infoDEV improve, and what else should infoDEV be working on going forward.

InfoDEV have just launched a survey on the usefulness and impact of infoDev’s Incubator Support Center (iDISC).

iDISC was established in 2002 to support ICT and ICT-enabled innovation and entrepreneurship in developing countries by supporting development of business incubators and by providing a knowledge platform to support technology entrepreneurs, SMEs and those involved in helping these companies and entrepreneurs to grow sustainable businesses.

Feedback is critical to help understand iDISC’s client base, broaden its impact, and find the best ways to improve its information and functionality. Please consider taking a few minutes to complete this important survey by Friday 28 May, 2010.

The initial results of this survey will be published in June, 2010 and a more extensive report and analysis later on. This is a real opportunity to have significant influence on iDISC’s future direction and priorities.

Make sure your views are heard!

Building on its legacy of Global Forums held in India in 2004 and 2006, and in Brazil in 2009, infoDev announced that dates for the 4th Global Forum on Innovation & Entrepreneurship have been confirmed and welcomes you to Helsinki, Finland for another exciting global gathering on May 30 - June 2, 2011.

With its strong national innovation policy and strategic international networks, coupled with the country’s – Living Lab - concept to bring together private and public sector actors on the innovation agenda, Finland presents a stimulating platform for infoDev’s global community of innovation & entrepreneurship practitioners, thought-leaders, stakeholders and donors.

SMARTXCHANGE APPROACH

AIN Durban has top billing in this months infoDEV news on www.idisc.net.

AIN on LinkedIN 
pre-conf=144 profiles, 
post-conf=157 profiles [+9%]

Tonight we celebrate achieving 600 AIN subscribers – thank you all for following our progress. Let us target 1000 before the end of June 2010? Please invite your colleagues to register on our AIN on YN portal.   

The delivery yesterday of our April Newsletter has immediately increased the number of visitors coming to read our eDiary of events in Durban. As we can see below, this is good.    

AIN blog visitors

On the other hand we can also see that the majority of people are reluctant to comment or post.    

So we have the dilemma – which is more interesting to listen to? A monologue or a dialogue?    

AIN Visitors - March 2010

What causes a person to engage and share their thoughts before they leave the room – or upon reflection come back in to add value to the conversation.  By making even one comment you can make a difference.    

Interesting and rich exchanges will also encourage our members to subscribe to this blog – keen to keep abreast of knowledge exchanges and current thinking.    

How can we continue where we all left off a week past Friday in Durban? Which topics do you feel need more insight and support?    

PS our weather warnings tonight tell of blizzards and snow 12″-15″ here by early morning. I am heading back to Durban……….

Our Programme Director for the evening Mr Sbu Kunene stepped up to the podium, bid us welcome and warmed us up for the main acts to come.  Regaling us with his reading prowess -  reading how red wine and red meat are not good for you and stopping both the very same day. His third book told how smoking can also damage your health – so Sbu stopped reading immediately .  

Sbu should be on the telly – time after time he had us believing he was on a serious tack and then hit us with his punchline. Jings how can we be so gullible?        

Ms Lupuwana welcomes delegates and dignitaries to the AIN Gala Dinner

 Ms. Hlonela Lupuwama, CEO Seda: topped off her ever-present conference attendance record assuredly by giving us the Welcome Address, including several dignitaries wishing to hear what we had been doing here in Durban for the last 2 days. Ms Lupuwana is clearly a champion of incubation and knows she is speaking to those of us who are in the incubator vanguard.       

Next up was a former classmate of Sbu’s. KwaZulu-Natal MEC Economic Development and Tourism the Honourable Mike Mabuyakhula. In his first sentence he promised not to try to match the humour and entertainment of Sbu and then delivered a superb riposte about  Sbu not reading the right books!       

MEC Mike Mabuyakhula addresses our AIN Gala dinner

We were also treated to an anecdotal story, if I recall correctly, of the two business people each gifted $1M with the proviso that they returned in 5 years time to see who was the most entrepreneurial.  

The first reckoned that with a $1M he had achieved as much as he would in his lifetime and proceeded to sit back and enjoy the benefits of accumulating such wealth.  

The second was so chuffed at being a millionaire, but worried and was concerned that if he spent even $1 he would then no longer be a millionaire? 

However he also had the “triple S’s “  in his DNA that each entreprenueur is born with.?  

S1 - the innate desire to SEEK and find commercial opportunities.
S2 – The vision to SEARCH for ways to take these opportunities to market.
S3 – The ambition to SUCCEED where others might give up.  

Starting with the simple idea of buying and selling fruit on a market stall the second person came back to the donor at the end of 5 years a self-made billionaire, with a chain of franchised fruit stalls and stores across the country.  

The second person, despite the donors support of the$1M kick start, told how he was declared a bankrupt having squandered his money within 3 years.  

 We then heard an endorsement of incubation and the difference it is making on the ground, particularly  here in the Eastern Provinces. AIN Address – MEC, Economic Development and Tourism, Michael Mabuyakhulu 

Suffice to say we gave the MEC a standing ovation at the end of his address . Designed to encourage himself and his fellow ministers to deliver the investment promised from KwaZulu-Natal and RSA government in return for more success in KNZ. Similarly to pass on the challenge for the other Provincial and African Governments and Public and Private Partners who do look South-South wishing enviously to emulate and replicate African firsts  – Pan Africa.    

CEO’s and representatives of the SABTIA regional incubators were each called forward  to be presented with Recognition Awards my MEC Mike for the contributions each are making to economic development and recovery in Southern Africa.   

As we then sat down to our dinner entertainment for the evening was provided by local talent. Joe Nina, family and friends guested and created such a great atmosphere to celebrate our week that delegates sang and danced till the midnight hour.       

Julie, Charles and Mbarou

 

http://www.last.fm/listen/artist/Joe%2BNina/similarartist… 

   

Joe Nina jamming with friends and family

AIN Delegates get in the mood to party Hilton style

 

 

Patricia and David in the mood

 

Sipho and friends are "rapped" by JN

 

Mbarou, David and Julie chillout - Cinderella time approaches

 

Richard and Julie await oor coach n horses