Impact Hub has announced five teams will go forward to the workshop stage of its Resilience Africa programme, which aims to launch hubs and incubation programmes in a number of African countries.
Disrupt Africa reported in January on the launch of Resilience Africa by Impact Hub, which has 54 hubs across the world with over 7,000 members. The programme, run in partnership with Dutch NGO Cordaid, is looking to train individuals to run Impact Hub Fellowship Programmes and Social Business Incubators (SBI).
Last month eight teams from five countries were selected to participate in candidate calls for the programme, with these now narrowed down to five teams, from Bujumbura in Burundi, Nairobi in Kenya, Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, and Freetown in Sierra Leone.
Impact Hub said as candidates the teams will now join a global network of over 11,000 members in more than 65 locations on six continents, with the founding members now set to attend an induction workshop in Kigali, Rwanda, run by Impact Hub founders from Sao Paulo, Caracas, Geneva and Amsterdam.
“The founders will share invaluable network experiences with the candidates as they develop business plans to found locally owned Impact Hub in their respective cities,” Impact Hub said.
“Africa is a continent brimming with fertile ideas for sparking change – but these ideas cannot happen in isolation. All entrepreneurs need resources – space, advice, time, networks, and funding – to help turn their ideas into reality. This is the core purpose of Impact Hub – to connect social entrepreneurs with the resources they need to start making changes from the ground up.”
Impact Hub has been on an expansion push in Africa of late, with Disrupt Africa reporting in December teams from seven countries were selected to take part in its Africa Seed Programme, a six-month incubator designed to support entrepreneurs in opening Impact Hubs across Africa.
