Stanford offers chance to attend business education programmes

THE Stanford Graduate School of Business has announced a $3-million (R40-million)‚ three-year partnership with the De Beers Group to empower young‚ budding entrepreneurs and owners of established businesses in Botswana‚ Namibia and South Africa through two educational programmes.

Stanford said it was expanding two of its programmes to Southern Africa – the Seed Transformation programme of the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies‚ known as Stanford Seed‚ and the Stanford Go-to-Market programme for accelerating business ventures to market.

Stanford Seed was a one-year programme of sessions on topics including leadership‚ strategy‚ business ethics‚ accounting‚ marketing and value chain innovations‚ the institution said.

“Seed facilitators also work with participants in carefully constructed leadership peer groups‚ offering networking opportunities‚ resources and ideas to help implement the participants’ transformation plans.”

Applications are open to existing businesses and will be accepted until October 6.

The Go-to-Market programme is a one-week entrepreneurship boot camp‚ taught by the Stanford GSB faculty.

“Through a combination of lectures‚ case studies and small-group discussions‚ it helps budding entrepreneurs gain the confidence and skills to commercialise their business ideas and accelerate their route to market,” it said.

Botswana will host the first programme in Africa‚ but the boot camp may expand to include participants from other Southern African countries once fully established. Chosen participants will convene in March.

Both programmes will be headquartered at the Botswana Innovation Hub‚ a science and technology park in Gaborone.

The initiative will be supported by a range of government entities in Botswana‚ including the Botswana Innovation Hub‚ the Ministry of Tertiary Education‚ and the Ministry of Youth Empowerment‚ Sport and Culture Development.