Growing agribusiness entrepreneurs in East Africa

A lot has happened in the last three months!  Together with our partners in the AGcelerate multi-stakeholder partnership in Uganda, we organised a weeklong set of activities. 140 participants from 18 countries came to the AGcelerate LAB 2019, 80% of them being below 30 years old and 35% female. During the week a Boot Camp was organised at the RUCID Organic Training College to generate business ideas from the many innovations initiated by the College. A 2-day Workshop was held at Makerere University on the theme Scaling from Ideas to Large-Scale Agribusinesses that included business school style case studies. The participants were inspired by the experience of Ambrose, Ritah and Lovin - three agripreneurs at different stages in their development. There was also a business pitch competition which was won by a young entrepreneur Steven Balyejjusa who is developing creams and lotions from avocado oil. The activities of the week were completed by farm visits – to a coffee plantation, an organic waste to soldier fly to chicken feed installation, and to a snail farm. Numerous collaborations and interactions have been initiated as a result of the 2019 LAB.

The Agripreneurship Alliance’s revamped training course Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness has been already launched in the Makerere University Business School and in Gulu University Uganda. Steven Carr spent a week at Bishop’s Stuart University in early September to train a further 10 Trainers. Courses at the other Universities in Kenya, Uganda and Somaliland are starting imminently once the students are back after the summer break.