Promoting Innovation

 

And

 

Entrepreneurship in Africa

 

 

The Africa Incubator Network: facilitation of innovative small enterprise development on the African continent through ICT enabled knowledge transfer

 

 

The goal of AIN is to develop a collaborative network of African incubators and other business development service providers, and to facilitate the provision of appropriate knowledge to support the development of innovative small enterprises.

 

Using ICT enabled processes, Softstart BTI (South Africa), the South African Business and Technology Incubator Association, BusyInternet (Ghana) and the Ugandan Industrial Research Institute (Uganda) will collectively contribute to the development of incubation and small enterprise development, and ultimately to the economic development of Africa.

 

The key objectives of AIN will be to:

q             Establish three sub-regional networks in Southern, East / Central  and West Africa that will support virtual and physical network building and focused lobbying within government, academic and business communities

q             Utilise a web portal as primary source of ICT enabled communication, knowledge sharing and knowledge management in the support of continental small enterprise development

 

q             Collaborate with infoDev in securing and coordinating donor and government participation to support activities within each of the sub‑regional networks which target the development of innovative small enterprises

q             Engage in collaboration with other continents in the exploration of appropriate enterprise development models and to use the Network and its ICT based facilitating mechanisms to make this knowledge available.

 

Key activities that will be undertaken in order to meet these objectives include:

q             Utilize a web site with a knowledge repository of shared tools and practices

q             Create awareness of incubation and the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship activity with stakeholders such as governments, education institutions and the finance and private sectors.  Advocate the network

q             Develop and disseminate promotional material, the activities of network members and country stories and in so doing, recognising successes

q             Build the network to ensure sustainability

q             Build capacity for incubator practitioners, which includes training and the facilitation of exchanges of experience, twinning and sharing programs between network members.

q             Support regional workshops