Daiki "Taji" Tajima

Location / Country: Kigali, Rwanda
Organization: Africa Entrepreneurship Collective

SONG: "This summer, I did my summer internship at African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC). AEC is an American NGO which supports entrepreneurs in Rwanda and Tanzania. AEC was founded by Ms. Julienne Oyler (CEO, Yale MBA) and Ms. Sara Leedom (COO, Oxford MBA) in 2012. Under AEC’s umbrella, there are three organizations; Inkomoko, the affiliate for providing business consulting in Rwanda, AEC Rwanda Trustee, which provides low-cost loans to entrepreneurs by collaboration with KIVA, and Anza, the affiliate for providing business consulting in Tanzania. Strictly speaking, I did my summer internship at Inkomoko among these three organizations.”

“Supporting entrepreneurs in Rwanda has three different stages. For the first stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs provide workshops for training basic business skills such as setting vision, mission and goals, building effective team, and basic accounting. During the first stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs also conducts initial meetings with the clients. For the second stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs analyze the business of entrepreneurs in terms of sales and marketing, operation, people, finance and accounting. During the second stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs also deliver the business assessment reports with recommendations to the clients. For the third stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs set the priority of the consulting service based on the feedbacks from the clients. During the third stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs also provide actual consulting services such as developing market strategies, making financial projections in order to get external funding from banks, providing advanced accounting workshops, etc. As a summer internship member, I mainly involved in the second stage, i.e. delivering the business assessment reports. “

Responsibilities & Accomplishments

“I was in charge of supporting four Rwandan entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs are chosen by Bank of Kigali’s entrepreneurship support project. Under this project, the eight winners among fifty entrepreneurs will be provided the interest-free loans by Bank of Kigali.”

“Although there are many challenges for entrepreneurs in Africa, international organization, governments, and private companies are cooperating each other to unlock the great potential of entrepreneurs in Africa in order to create more jobs and achieve sustainable development of the continent.”

__

Conclusion

“My summer internship at African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC) / Inkomoko was an amazing experience for me. I learned a lot from the NGO and people in Rwanda but at the same time I tried to do my best for contributing through supporting clients of AEC through business assessment reports, providing internal training about Japanese economic growth and developing networks with IFC and JICA. I would like to contribute more to the beautiful country, Rwanda, as wells as the amazing African continent after graduating from Fletcher.”

Dylan Lubbe

Location / Country: Ahmedabad, India
Organization: Centre for Innovation, Incubation, & Entrepreneurship

LUBBE: "In the summer of 2017, I joined the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship as a Strategy Associate. Working vigorously under four initiatives, I gained vast exposure to many startups, industries, ideas and entrepreneurs.”

__

Centre for Innovation, Incubation, & Entrepreneurship

“The Indian Institute of Management’s (IIM) Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into viable businesses by incubating, accelerating, mentoring and funding innovative start-ups. CIIE believes that entrepreneurship can bring about disruptive change through ventures across impact areas like energy, environment, agriculture, healthcare and affordable technology.”

__

Impact:

The India Innovation Growth Programme (IIGP)

“Under this program, selected startups and entrepreneurs were hosted by CIIE and took part in a week long, intense lecture series held by IIM professors. In addition, entrepreneurs would participate in concentrated sessions with CIIE mentors to discuss their businesses and ideas. On behalf of CIIE I advised and mentored at least eight entrepreneurs and startups under the programme. During these sessions, we discussed the challenges faced by these startups, identified growth opportunities and critiqued the business viability and models of the businesses.”

IIMAvericks Initiative

“This program is dedicated to helping graduating MBA students of IIM focus on their business ideas and sustain themselves during the first two-year period of starting up.

I worked particularly closely with two members under this initiative. First Nahulan Pranav, who wants to bypass the traditional method of purchasing fruits and vegetables in India by creating an express delivery service.“

Innovation City

“Innocity” is an on-demand and a customized startup support platform designed by CIIE. Through CIIE, Innocity enables aspiring entrepreneurs to get customized guidance, support and services from relevant professionals, mentors, startup founders, angels and other startup service providers.

Under this initiative, I delivered presentations on Customer Development to Innocity attendees. I took entrepreneurs through various frameworks and tools such as the Business Canvas Model, Lean Model Process, the concept of Minimum Viable Products and the Lean Start Up process to help them validate and refine their ideas and early stage startups.”

__

Conclusion

“My experience at CIIE was remarkable and one that I will never forget. Not only have I gained valuable experience, quality learning and an acquisition of many new skills, my work was rewarding and energizing. I really felt that I added value to those with whom I worked with which was a great takeaway.”

Justin Erickson

Countries: Managua, Nicaragua
Organization: Technoserve

JUSTIN: "This summer I worked at Technoserve in Managua, Nicaragua. Technoserve is a large international non-government organization that works in the areas of agriculture and entrepreneurship. They are based in Washington, D.C., but they have offices in Africa, Latin America, and India. I worked out of Managua, which is their headquarters for Central America. About one hundred people (almost exclusively Nicaraguan) work out of the office. I traveled to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala during the internship. The eight-week long internship was formalized on the part of Technoserve as part of their Volunteer Consultant Program. Volunteer consults work on projects in all of the areas Technoserve works.

Technoserve brought me on board in order to better understand their place in the entrepreneurship assistance market in Central America. They are currently running two entrepreneurship programs in the region. One is called CRECE. CRECE is a program for young people to help them develop their business ideas or start-ups. The other is ITE, which stands for Impulsa Tu Empresa (push your business). This program is for small and medium enterprises in the C-4 region (Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala) to grow their businesses. The average business in this program has about 14 employees and does about $200,000USD in sales per year. Both of these programs have been running for about three years in the C-4 region. About 75 businesses participate in the program per country per year."

At the end I created a thirty slide presentation and presented it to my supervisor in Managua. We then looked discussed some changes to be made and I turned in a final report. I was invited to give my presentation to the Director of Entrepreneurship in Washington, D.C., and so after my fellowship ended I went to D.C. to give the presentation. Using my work, Technoserve has a better understanding of its place in Central America, ideas for how it can create more impact, a qualitative review of their two main entrepreneurship programs, and a starting framework that will appeal to funders as they are in the process to raising money to support the programs in the future.

Fumi Tataki

Country: Rwanda
Organization: African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC)

Fumi: "The purpose of my summer internship is to earn an experience of working in Africa to find approaches to achieve economic development through business. By working as a mentor and consultant for clients of African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC) in Rwanda, I developed strong interest in working in human capital development for small medium enterprises (SMEs) in the future.  

After working with SMEs in Rwanda, I started to develop a career interest in human capital development, particularly skill development and change in awareness toward professional environment. I was intrigued by the need of that human capital development that can tremendously make positive impact to development of the country. Besides my work at AEC, I also had a chance to work with AIP, a program that provides training to students. With another Fletcher student, I presented Business Canvas Model to university students across Rwanda. It was a wonderful experience to interact with students and help them develop their own business ideas. After Fletcher, I would like to
pursue my career in SMEs sector to help their business to make development impact to their lives and country’s well being."

Justin Sullivan

Country: Rwanda
Organization: African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC)

Justin travelled to Kigali, Rwanda as a Global Business Mentor for African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC) at Inkomoko, AEC’s pilot program. AEC’s model has already helped create more than 700 jobs, while contributing to the country’s economic and social development.  

Justin: “I found the opportunity to work so closely with young, driven African entrepreneurs incredibly valuable. Not only was I able to refine and put to practice many of the lessons from first year foundational business courses at Fletcher, but I was able to do it a part of the world that I consider a second home, and in a sector that I am truly passionate about and believe will continue to bring a significant social impact to Africa in the future. Honestly, my experience this summer far exceeded my expectations. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity that the Blakeley Fellowship has given me. With this experience under my belt, I look forward to a long future career in the East African tech business."

Nathaniel Rosenblum

Country: Rwanda
Organization: African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC), Inkomoko

Nathaniel spent the summer working for Inkomoko, a business acceleratory run by the African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC) based in Kigali, Rwanda. AEC through Inkomoko works with hundreds of entrepreneurs in Rwanda to help them move from start up to fully‐fledged business. They are not specialized in a particular field, and rather reflect the growth spaces of the Rwandan economy

Nathaniel: “the most important accomplishment of my time in Rwanda has to do with refocusing my career interest. I am now much more aware of the challenges of financing development in agriculture through the private sector. These challenges are not insurmountable, rather without a concerted effort to deal with them they will continue to hamper ambitious and deserving entrepreneurs. In whatever my next steps are I plan on addressing those problems thanks to this summer’s glimpse into the Rwandan agribusiness landscape.”

Braden Weinstock

Country: South Africa
Organization: Endeavor South Africa

Braden Weinstock’s consulting project was with Endeavor South Africa. Endeavor is a leading non-profit accelerator with offices in about 20 emerging markets. He had three objectives for his summer experience – to learn about South Africa, to test his skills at supporting entrepreneurs, and to develop himself as a leader.

Braden: “My experience in South Africa was very enriching on both professional and personal fronts. Professionally, working in a non-profit I got to experience the culture and struggles which are both very different from a Fortune 500 firm. On a personal front, I learned I would love living in South Africa, and am pursuing career opportunities there now.”

Anjali Shrikhande

Country: Uganda
Organization: Yunus Social Business

Anjali Shrikhande worked as a Social Business Consultant for Yunus Social Business in their Kampala, Uganda office. Her main goal for the internship was to gain a better understanding of market-based approaches to development, specifically the social business model, and to investigate how the model works on the ground in a developing country.

Anjali: “I was able to form contacts through YSB and independently that will also be valuable in trying to find jobs in this field. I found the entrepreneurs that I met and worked with to be truly inspiring and passionate about creating change in their own communities.”

Owen M. Sanderson

Country: Kenya

Organization: Ushahidi

Owen M. Sanderson worked in one of the fastest-crowing tech centers in the world: Nairobi, Kenya. He focused his summer on two objectives: supporting Ushahidi’s business development team as they think through their current business model and conducting several in-depth training seminars for a small cohort of young African entrepreneurs at Nairobi’s celebrated iHub.

Owen: “After two months in East Africa, I left feeling every optimistic about its future. I embarked upon my summer with the goal of investigating the unique link between technology and development. My summer in Nairobi underscored the widespread allure of technology and its potential to uplift millions.”

Heather Lemunyon

Country: Rwanda

Organization: AEC (The African Entrepreneur Collective

Heather Lemunyon’s role at AEC (The African Entrepreneur Collective) was to serve as a Global Business Mentor, or and entrepreneurship consultant who worked one-on 0one with AEC’s clients in business planning financial planning, developing strategies for growth, market and sales analysis, and and strategic vision.

Heather: “In every way possible, my time as a Global Business Mentor with AEC was outstanding. Not only did I fulfill all of my personal goals for my internship experience, I was allowed great opportunities to directly and positively impact the growth of East African companies that I hope will continue to grow, increase employment, and continue to develop this region of the world with such large opportunities and potential.”

Katie Halleran

Country: Cambodia

Organization: Development Innovations

Katie Halleran worked at Development Innovations in Cambodia, and immersed herself int he world of Phnom Penh startups, hub, hackerspaces, design thinking groups, and co-working spaces in order to get to know the landscape. She also took part in providing content and editing for the first and second rounds of an internal DAI competition on innovative projects.

Katie: “I was fortunate to alongside the talented people on the ground at DI; one of my colleagues, a Khmer Rouge survivor who escaped at the Thai border camps at 6 years old, had just finished a documentary on rediscovering the camp where over 20,000 were said to have died, and reconnecting with childhood friends with whom he had fled the camp.”

Anna Valeria

Country: Lima

Organization: Endeavor Brasil / Andean Innovation Red

Anna Valeria joined Andean Innovation Red (AIR) early in the organization’s development. She acted as an advisor, identifying the purpose of every company activity to determine relevance to key objectives. Her main objective was to build a map of the entrepreneurial landscape in Lima. She interviewed entrepreneurs, investors, acelerators and university officials involved in fostering entrepreneurship. As a result AIR attracted for the first time the attention of the community by using a new technological platform (i.e. Google Hangouts) that allowed to reach more audience and to create a virtual platform where entrepreneurs and soon-to-be entrepreneurs can share ideas.

Anna: “Today I feel more prepared and confident that I have been gathering the needed tools, both in terms of the academic work and now during the summer with hands-on experience to start building my own startup with social impact.”

Hannah Schiff

Country: India
Organization: Start Up! India

Hannah Schiff’s work included in-person interviews with villagers, experts in the field, and other social entrepreneurs as well as exposure to a wide variety of social enterprise models. She gained experience helping social enterprises define smart business strategies and processes and created questionnaires, guides and other content for Start Up! India’s Incubation Tool Kit.

Hannah : “This was a powerful internship through which I gained many insights that will be useful in my academic and career decisions going forward. The experience helped me to refine my idea of what I am looking for in a future work environment.”