Second MBA Program For African Social Entrepreneurs Launches In Ghana

The Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - ALTIS, Postgaduate School Business and Society (Milan – Italy), with funding from the Graduate Management Admission Council's Management Education for Tomorrow Fund, is launching a second executive MBA program for social entrepreneurs on October 21, 2013 in Accra, Ghana.

The 15-month program, offered through a partnership with Catholic Institute of Business and Technology of Accra, Ghana, will help approximately three dozen entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. The program replicates a successful program launched in June in Nairobi, Kenya, where Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore partnered with the Tangaza College of the Catholic University of East Africa to train 37 East African entrepreneurs. At both programs, the faculty includes a business coach who will work with students individually.

“The programsdo not teach entrepreneurship, but rather they train entreprenuers,” said prof. Mario Molteni, the program's academic director.

The students, mainly from the capital city of Accra, are being selected through a competitive process that includes pitching their business or business plan. Applicants will participate in a business idea competition on October 11. Accepted students will attend on scholarship as the program is funded by the GMAC MET Fund.

Of the 30 students accepted so far, most have business ideas to develop products and services addressing agribusiness, technology, and transportation. The program aims to grow local businesses hiring local employees and using local raw materials.

The course incorporates a unique blend of online content delivery, in-class discussions, and individualized business coaching. During the on-line learning the business coach makes visits to each student's business to help guide the entrepreneurs toward integrating what they have learned in class into their business.

This program was funded by the GMAC MET Fund through the worldwide Ideas to Innovation (i2i) Challenge. In the two-phase competition, the MET Fund awarded US$262,000 for the top 20 ideas to improve management education and then more than US$7.1 million to 12 schools and organizations to implement the ideas. The program incorporates two winning ideas: to have every MBA student create a business plan and to develop an entrepreneurship program for MBA students.

A key criterion during the idea phase was replicability. The Ghana program is the second in a planned series of entrepreneurship MBA programs. The Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore has already secured funding from the European Union to launch a third program in Sierra Leone in 2014.

“We hope to be doing 10 of these programs in 10 different countries in Africa in five years,” Molteni says.

“The GMAC MET Fund, the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, and the university partners all recognize that successful entrepreneurs, particularly social entrepreneurs, have a vital role in improving society – especially in emerging economies,” said Allen Brandt, GMAC MET Fund director. “Graduate business education in entrepreneurship helps train entrepreneurs to develop their own countries — a sustainable model for improving both management education and economic development.”