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Entrepreneurial Learning

Teaching entrepreneurs to defy the odds

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:29

The GIBS-Endeavor Enterprise Learning Circles provide existing and aspiring entrepreneurs with an opportunity to learn from the country’s most successful entrepreneurs.

High-impact entrepreneurs – those that have the ambition and drive to build innovative, high-growth businesses – are the ones that generate the majority of GDP growth, job creation and wealth in a country.

But in South Africa, rates of participation in entrepreneurship stand at 5%, which means we are trailing peer emerging market countries such as Brazil and Indonesia by between 7% and 14%.

This is according to a study in Mexico conducted by Endeavor, a global non-profit outfit that supports high impact entrepreneurs in 11 emerging markets, including South Africa.

Endeavor’s newly-launched Enterprise Learning Circle seminars aim to instill a more robust culture of entrepreneurship throughout South Africa, and thereby increase the country’s levels of entrepreneurship, economic development and job creation.

Launched in conjunction with the Gordon Institute for Business Science (GIBS), the seminars provide existing and aspirant entrepreneurs with a unique opportunity to learn from some of South Africa’s top entrepreneurial minds. For example, the first seminar planned for 10 June 2009 will feature Black Like Me founder and serial entrepreneur Herman Mashaba.

The Enterprise Learning Circle Seminars will be held fortnightly at GIBS in Illovo, Johannesburg, and will include topics like Growth Strategies for Innovative Entrepreneurs; Sales Strategies for B2B; B2C and B2G Businesses’ Leadership Issues; and the Personal Journeys of Entrepreneurs, to name but a few.

What’s more, they will be offered free of charge on a first-come, first served basis. For cash-strapped enterprises in an economic downturn, this is an opportunity not to be missed.

“Through the Enterprise Learning Circle, we hope to stimulate a cultural and mental shift to entrepreneurship using the inspiring journeys of real-life successful entrepreneurs who will give practical advice on how they did it,” explains Malik Fal, MD of Endeavor South Africa.

The seminars will educate and inspire both existing and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to know how to create innovative, high-growth, ethically responsible and sustainable businesses in South Africa.

Around 80% of private sector jobs created in the last five years were generated by the 5% of entrepreneurs in South Africa. Fal adds that anecdotal evidence suggests that one of the biggest challenges facing entrepreneurs in developing countries is the lack of access to mentors and support networks.

Endeavor, through its network of contacts with established and successful entrepreneurial leaders, hopes to go some way to meeting this need. “The Enterprise Learning Circle is designed to impart valuable and practical learnings, and to show entrepreneurs that the road they walk doesn’t have to be a lonely one,” says Fal.

Endeavor has attracted support from some of South Africa’s best entrepreneurial business minds, including Adrian Gore, who acts as Chairman of the South African operation.

Vinny Lingham, South African Endeavor Entrepreneur and founder of Yola – a Silicon Valley enterprise that recently received a R200 million investment from the Reinet Fund – says, “These Enterprise Learning Circle seminars are exactly what South African entrepreneurs are missing.”

To register or find out more, visit Endeavor