In a bid to empower smart and innovative entrepreneurs, no fewer than 200 entrepreneurs across Africa, have been scheduled to be part of Alibaba’s eFounders Fellowship programme. Founder of the multinational e-commerce company, Jack Ma, had in 2017 made his first visit to Africa to seek smart and innovative African entrepreneurs.
Alibaba’s vision for Africa
In a recent interview with CBCAfrica, Brian Wong, Vice President of Globalization Initiatives at Alibaba, revealed that out of 1000 entrepreneurs from developing countries who would be empowered in five years, 200 would be from Africa.
Having witnessed relative challenged he helped to combat in China in the past two decades, Ma during his visit to Africa observed that enabling entrepreneurs, youths, women SMEs amongst others can be empowered through most innovative businesses in China.
In view of this, the company is partnering with local entrepreneurs who have the knowledge of the local markets across Africa. This is believed, will establish wealth expansion and make the economy robust.
How Alibaba tend to leverage Africa-based entrepreneurs to succeed in digital economy
29 entrepreneurs who reside in Africa had participated in a flagship programme hosted by Alibaba Business School and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The 29 entrepreneurs participated in an intensive eFounders Fellowship programme.
The innovative programme seeks to expose participants to e-commerce innovations from China and developed countries around the world. The eFounders Fellowship, which will last for 2 weeks, give the entrepreneurs who operate open, platform-based businesses in the ecommerce, logistics, big data, and tourism sectors, the opportunity to understand how e-commerce innovations are enabling growth and inclusive development for all.
Highlighting breakthrough innovations that have magically transformed China, each participant will be inspired to creatively think of frameworks based on new learnings that can be applied to their own markets.
Alibaba will provide the necessary tools for the participating entrepreneurs to improve their ventures and enhance their skills.
How knowledge acquired from the Alibaba initiative will be spread across Africa
As pioneers of the new economy, participating entrepreneurs are expected to be network builders for other aspiring entrepreneurs and explore the new discovered approaches to digital commerce in their chosen markets.
UNCTAD and Alibaba, with the fellowship, expresses believe that the fellows will serve as source of inspiration to others with powerful ideas that can be explored to change the world.
About Alibaba
Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese multinational e-commerce, retail, Internet, AI and technology conglomerate founded in 1999 that provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business sales services via web portals, as well as electronic payment services, shopping search engines and cloud computing services. It owns and operates a diverse array of businesses around the world in numerous sectors, and is named as one of the world’s most admired companies by Fortune magazine.