The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) in a collaborative project with the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship and the Dutch Centres for Entrepreneurship has organized a six week Train the Trainer programme to develop a Startup initiative for Agri entrepreneurs.
This training program is the first part of a project that was jointly submitted in March 2020 by WACCI and the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship to the Dutch government for the internalization in education (Nuffic) for a grant in line with the Dutch government’s priority theme: Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) and Water (Management) for Agricultural Production: Focus on Entrepreneurship and the Development of the Private Sector.
The aim of the training is to discuss and explore some important concepts related to entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial ecosystems, to start the design of a first startup programme together and to draft a roadmap towards its implementation within the existing structures of WACCI. The programme consists of a train the trainer course, a validation boot camp, an online mentoring for students from the Master programs in Agribusiness and Agri-economics, Seed Science and Technology and Crop Science and a final event of a pitching competition involving the private and public sectors to celebrate the successful execution of the first startup program.
WACCI has selected 14 staff members from WACCI, Crop Science, Agribusiness Department and Business School to participate in this start up program which will be embedded in WACCI’s Kofi Annan Enterprise Hub for Agricultural Innovation. The project ends in March 31, 2022.
