African Startups pitch their solutions at the IE Africa Center, Madrid, Spain, 15 July 2019
In the framework of the successful competition of the first UNWTO/NEPAD Tourism Tech Adventure: Promoting African Tourism Innovation during the 10th Anniversary of the Tourism Investment and Business Forum for Africa (INVESTOUR) held on January 24, 2019 in Madrid two African tourism startups won a scholarship from IE University’s Africa Center in Madrid.
As such, Mr. David Gonahasa, representing the start-up Roundbob from Uganda and Mrs. Rekik Bekele representing RunAfrica from Ethiopia were sponsored to participate and undertake immersion training in a 1-week Social Innovators Retreat, organized by IE Africa Center from July 7-15, 2019.
The Social Innovators Retreat which took place at IE University’s Segovia campus welcomed a total of nine social entrepreneurs coming from Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Uganda.
Operating on an invite-only basis, the programme focused on offering instructive lessons ranging from Fundraising for Social Impact, to Digital Transformation and Measuring Impact in order to provide and enrich the entrepreneurs with the tools and techniques to scale up their work and businesses.
The 1-week intensive training concluded with a “Challenge day” where each start up presented their business ideas at IE University in Madrid, in front of a panel of mentors from MasterCard, Barrabés and IE University among others. Mr.Zurab Pololikashvili, UNWTO Secretary General attended the event with other UNWTO Officials representing the organization as one of the key partners of the event.
As a follow-up, The Social Innovators Retreat will offer a 4-week online course, where each startup will be paired with a mentor to further develop their businesses and ideas.
