Africa’s growth over the last decade is distinct from that in previous periods which were fueled by global demand for natural resources that the continent possesses in abundance. Internal demand, rooted in urbanization and the rise of an emergent middle class, provides a critical newer engine to Africa’s economies. Our novel “AfricaLive!” program provides a unique framework, and a Pan-African online learning community, to contribute to growth driven by domestic entrepreneurship. The novelty of our program is two-fold. We mix and match pre-existing asynchronous video content about entrepreneurship in emerging economies with live, Africa-specific deep-dives into broad topics of interest to every entrepreneur. Program participants are introduced to a topic each week for six continual weeks and encouraged to apply each week’s insights to their own business plans directed to an opportunity of interest. Second, the program itself is a new collaboration by faculty at Harvard Business School and Harvard University, in partnership with the online learning platforms, edX and HarvardX, and the media company, Africa.com. It is an academia-industry partnership of a sort that tends to be quite rare.
SOURCE: AFRICA.COM