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STEMpower -VISA
General Information
The STEMpower-VISA Entrepreneurial and Financial Education Training were launched with partnership agreement between STEMpower and VISA on November 2020. The training curricula and modules were developed and contextualized until December 2020, and the training of trainers, forming of partnerships with accomplished Ethiopian entrepreneurs– Mr. Kibret, founder and CEO of Tebita ambulance; Mr. Habtamu, founder and CEO of ZayRide, & Mr. Ezedin, founder and CEO of Icon-Africa– and registration of trainees followed till January 2021. On February of 2021, cohort 1 was officially launched.
Cohort-1 Training
The cohort-one training was conducted for nine days, from Feb 16 to March 6 in 3 centers inside Addis Ababa. More than 200 candidates were enrolled, and 112 successfully finished the training sessions. The training is comprise of three modules: Entrepreneurial Mindset, Entrepreneurial Skillset, and Basics of Financial Education.
Post Training Follow up
After the trainings are completed, trainees submitted their project proposals– a total of 70 projects were submitted– and they were coached for two rounds, the first one was from March 17-20 and the second was from April 7-10, based on the project ideas they submitted to help them make their projects more feasible and turn it into an actual business.
Project Pitching
The trainees pitched their ideas to experts in their respective industry. These sessions aimed to get them technical and practical advices, and possibly mentorship opportunities. From the 58 projects that were presented on the first round pitching sessions, 20 of them were screened and shortlisted for a final round pitching which happened on Thursday April 29th with judges from a wide range of expertise.
Cohort-1 Graduation
The graduation ceremony of the first cohort happened on May 5th with an award ceremony for the best projects/ventures in the categories of Health, Agriculture, Service, and Engineering/Technology. The innovators will stay with us for additional nine months for a series of consultations.
Cohort-2 Training
The second cohort in-person training has already been started on May 10, and will go on until Saturday May 22. We expect to graduate around 240 trainees for this cohort.