a-Imagine is a business incubation and innovation programme, designed to address the issue of youth and graduate unemployment in Kenya. Our aim is to work with budding entrepreneurs in creating successful businesses, that both raises household incomes, and creates jobs. Starting a business is tough. Taking into account the difficulties of creating a start up business, a-Imagine takes a three pronged approach by focusing on: knowledge, skills and mindset.
Teaching the lean business start-up approach, combined with design thinking form a central pillar of knowledge and skills. Having the all important ‘can do’ mindset is addressed, in part, through fun outdoor ‘learn by doing’ experiential training. Instead of letting the young business person find out the hard way, we anticipate the issues entrepreneurs are likely to face, and simulate the problems they are likely to encounter.
Not reinventing the wheel, a-Imagine is teaming with world class partners. a-Imagine is an aCatalyst Consulting initiative www.acatalyst.co.ke
Business knowledge is abundant in our digital information age which can be over whelming. a-Imagine aims to cut through the clutter, providing the young entrepreneur with the menu of what they need to know.
The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman, providing a world class education in a single volume, is one of many pieces of knowledge we use. Participants are provided with business knowledge through, for instance, books, DVDs and online resources.
Skills are the ability to take that knowledge in one’s head, and put it into action. Adults learn best by ‘learn by doing’, not be being lectured or preached to.
Learning skills is a process of trial and error, seeing what works, and what does not, in a supportive environment.
Just as you can’t teach swimming in a class room, you can’t create start-up business skills through simply talking. One has to get out in the market place and have the skill to notice what customers’ really want.
Mindset is the most critical element in creating a successful business.
Inevitably, in every business, unexpected problems will come appear that have to be solved.
a-Imagine aims to provide the right tools and mindset to see how problems can become gifts.
Albert Einstein
Both graduate and youth unemployment is a major issue in Kenya. Part of the solution to the problem, is to encourage young people to shift from being job seekers to employment creators. While this is easy to say, in practice, this is far trickier that one might expect, for a variety of reasons.
Old approaches to teaching entrepreneurship don’t work. There is a need to share more practical leading edge thinking how to start a successful business part of which involves: the lean start-up and design thinking approach.
a-imagine approaches give young people the permission to test, experiment what it is like to start up a business. To simulate the business start up, before actually investing the funds and resources required. In a paradoxical way, young people need to be given the ‘permission to fail’ in a no risk way, in order to understand what it takes to have a small business take off.
1 a-Imagine believes that learning should be fun. In 1994 the ‘Graduate Labour Market study’ done for the World Bank and the Commission for Higher Education found that the average university graduate took on average 2.5 years to gain formal sector employment. Since the increase in student intake numbers, the time taken for university graduates to gain employment has only lengthened.
2 Knowledge, skills and mindset University programmes at their most basic, focus mostly on providing students with knowledge in various disciplines. With skills, one is taking knowledge and applying it to produce various outcomes – results. However, what is important in all of this is that the student develops a mindset that complements their knowledge and skills. Without a ‘can do’ mindset based on for instance, being thoughtful, conscientious and responsive a student is [likely] going to have problems achieving the success they dream of.
a-Imagine injects new thinking on how entrepreneurs actually start businesses by focusing on training on the ‘Lean Business Start Up’ approach.
Learning from the experience in Silicon Valley and Toyota, in the lean business start up approach the stress in starting business is on starting small, experiment, quickly changing, adapting all the time, focusing on asking what does the customer really want. Read More
Hand in hand with the lean business start–up approach is design thinking. Design thinking stresses action over planning, getting the entrepreneur to look at problems through the eyes of customers. Read More
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will get you everywhere"
Albert Einstein
a-Imagine is proud to partner with a number of organizations that share our mission to accelerate the development of entrepreneurs through experiential education.
Our partners include:
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| Great start up business coaching |
Imagine Business Success Factor course provides a lab – incubation like setting for examining what it takes to create a successful small business start-up. Course is based on three building block ideas: 1) the lean start up approach, 2) the need to address knowledge, skills and mindset and 3) a step by step gradual ‘learn by doing’ experimenting approach.
