Entrepreneurship Track: Testing the pulse of entrepreneurship ecosystems in African higher educational institutions: a proposed diagnostic model.

Speakers: Dr. Sena Agbodjah, Dr. William Murithi, AnnStella Gakii, Elorm Dela-Brown

Higher educational institutions (HEIs) across the African continent have been teaching entrepreneurship and training entrepreneurs for decades. Different institutions have tackled this by creating renditions of entrepreneurship ecosystems that serve their needs, fit within the confines of their constraints, and help them achieve their entrepreneurial aspirations. Some of these HEIs know how to describe and diagnose their entrepreneurship ecosystems to arrive at interventions they need to implement to enhance their outcomes. Others over the years have also struggled to do so. This research seeks to fill this gap and provide a learning opportunity for all HEIs on the continent. It does so by developing a three-tier diagnostic tool that will eventually materialize into a playbook to aid HEIs on the continent “test the pulse” of their entrepreneurship ecosystems and with the support of a larger network, develop interventions to move them closer to their aspirations.

This session will present a proposed model that allows HEIs on the continent to describe their entrepreneurship ecosystem as the first step to diagnosing their status and developing appropriate interventions. Further, HEI entrepreneurship ecosystem actor participants will have the opportunity to try the tool by using it to describe their ecosystems, while other stakeholders and enabler participants will critique the model and work through collaboration recommendations to support HEI entrepreneurship ecosystems achieve their aspirations.

View the recap of the 2022 Annual Convening here