“We are confident the youth of Malawi are ready for the competition and that it will be successful”.
The Growth Accelerator, a first of its kind, was officially launched yesterday in Malawi. The programme will be implemented by Malawi’s mHub in collaboration with GrowthAfrica with UNDP Malawi and Norwegian Embassy in Malawi as the official initiators and supporters. mHub is Malawi’s first technology and innovation hub located in Lilongwe and a working space in Blantyre. The programme is aimed at supporting and accelerating 10 young Malawian impactful enterprises.
We are looking forward to working with Malawi’s leading entrepreneurial talent and contributing to the next generation of impactful ventures. Speaking at the launch was Honorable Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism – Malawi Hon Henry Mussa, UN Resident Coordinator Maria Jose Torres, Ambassador of Norway in Malawi Kikan Haugen and GrowthAfrica’s Executive Partner Ian Lorenzen. Maria Jose Torres encouraged the youth in Malawi to apply to the programme since this will steer her organisation’s vision and objective of making Malawi independent and economically empowered. She stated that she was confident that the youth of Malawi are ready for the competition and that it would be successful. “The goal is to make Malawi independent of foreign aid and that can only be done by growth in the private sector” Kikan Haugen added. mHub’s Founder Rachel Sibande said that the programme will start as an entrepreneurship challenge where 10 entrepreneurs will be selected from a national call for proposals to take part in the acceleration programme.
We at GrowthAfrica are excited to be running this programme with mHub having ran 14 acceleration programmes in the past 6 years, supporting entrepreneurs in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Zambia. “We provide programme design, content and methodology that has been tested and used across other African countries,” Ian Lorenzen stated. “We are also excited to partner with GrowthAfrica and leverage on their knowledge and experience. We believe the entrepreneurs that will come out of this programme will create solutions to challenges faced in Malawi” Rachel Sibande added.
The one hour press conference ended with words from Honourable Henry Mussa who urged Malawi Media to note that the success of the Growth Accelerator market test relies on their assistance to carry out the message. Running on the #GrowthAcceleratorMw hashtag, click on our Twitter page www.twitter.com/GrowthAfrica, to follow the full conversation.
