E4impact provides a unique and innovative way of training entrepreneurs with the goal of creating a world-class entrepreneurial ecosystem around the local universities which then support impact oriented enterprises through funding access to credit and other forms of investment. Through partnerships with local universities, E4Impact effectively functions as a platform for knowledge transfer, bringing a successful entrepreneurship training model to developing countries at scale. Rather than set up independent training programs in each of these countries, E4Impact partners with local universities in a 3 year capacity building process so they can eventually run the MBA program on their own with E4Impact offering continuous support, quality control and international connections.
Once a partner university has been identified, the first step involves setting up of the E4Impact Business Model Center which serves the function of coordinating the partnership between the local university and the organization. The center organizes a Business Plan Competition through which local entrepreneurs are vetted to participate in the MBA training. The Center also coordinates the training of local trainers who facilitate the program. In addition, a local entrepreneur –in-residence is hired to work with the student-entrepreneurs throughout the duration of the training. Finally, the center coordinates support for Alumni, particularly those who are looking to scale internationally.
At the ecosystem level, the E4Impact Business Model Center convenes other players in the entrepreneurship ecosystem from impact investors to incubators and organizations that support social entrepreneurs. For example in East Africa, E4Impact is partnering with Ashoka to provide training for Ashoka Fellows who are looking to scale their impact across the region. In addition, the program partners with local incubators and accelerators including the iHub and Growth Africa. In this way, the program strategically intervenes at the individual, institution (university) and ecosystem levels with the aim of empowering all the actors to be more effective in their work.
E4Impact theory of change is based on the vision to empower local entrepreneurs by partnering with universities and other players in the ecosystem to raise the level of competitiveness to international standards. As such the program aims to change the mind-set of the universities’ faculty and administration first so that they can then empower graduates to pursue entrepreneurship as a viable career.
To change the mind-set at the institutional level, E4Impact seeks to bridge the academic and business or entrepreneurship worlds through such strategies as using business plan competitions to recruit students and introducing the role of entrepreneur in residence/business coaches on campuses. For graduate students, E4Impact aims to change the perception that Entrepreneurship is solely a career for those who fail to do well in academia. It remains a reality that majority of those who do well in school end up in employment while many of the entrepreneurs who run small businesses that carry the potential to create new jobs are uneducated ( up to the university level).
Accordingly, Mario launched the pilot for E4Impact in Kenya in 2010, through a partnership with Tangaza College of the Catholic University of East Africa (CUEA). The pilot became a success leading to the launch of 2 new partnerships in Ghana and Sierra Leone. Mario is currently engaged in discussions with local universities in Uganda (Martyrs University), Ivory Coast (Centre de REcherche et d’Action pur la Paix), Nigeria (Obafemi Awolowo University) and Saint Augustine University of Tanzania. This will bring the program to a total of 7 countries in Africa alone, demonstrating the potential that it has to achieve Mario’s vision of a global network of universities that are driving local entrepreneurial ecosystems and thereby amplifying the impact of homegrown entrepreneurs. In addition to Sub-Saharan Africa, Mario is looking to scale E4Impact to India and Latin America and has already engaged the Universidad del Pacifico in Peru and the Marian International Institute of Management in India for potential partnership.
Despite this focus on international scale, Mario is committed to ensuring that the focus on growing local entrepreneurs is not lost which he guarantees through the partnership model with local universities. In addition, the program is designed to be flexible enough to accommodate the different levels of each local university with some requiring more hand-holding than others. Obviously there is a risk in such a scaling model particularly in terms of ensuring that the quality of the intervention is maintained. Consequently, E4Impact has developed a hub and spoke model whereby the Nairobi and Ghana centers act as training hubs for the rest of the continent in order to encourage peer to peer learning. In addition, Mario is planning to develop the E4Impact Academy to provide continuous training for faculty from around the world which will also enable them to continuously adapt the training to suit changing conditions both locally and internationally.
E4Impact measures its success through a number of metrics including: the number of entrepreneurs and university faculty trained, the number of partnerships established, number of jobs created by alumni as well as number of partners engaged at the ecosystem level. So far, the program has trained 130 entrepreneurs while another 105 and currently undertaking the program. In addition, 28 Faculty have been trained and an additional 12 university faculty members. More than 70 organizations in the ecosystem level (incubators and accelerators) have been engaged. There are 3 partnerships in place with an additional 10 planned for the coming year and 15 requests for replication filed. The organization is currently conducting an evaluation to establish the number of businesses started by their alumni as well as the number of jobs they have created and funds raised. In East Africa, 2 of the alumni from the program have become Ashoka Fellows (Joseph Nkandu & MFarm Co-founder).