Most African countries are struggling with the problem of a growing youth population. Many of the youth are unemployed. This problem is exacerbated by university training programmes that churn out graduates who seek employment instead of creating employment. This project intends to establish an agribusiness incubation hub at Egerton University, Kenya. This hub seeks to encourage growth of sustainable commercially viable agribusinesses by supporting the development of well-structured agribusiness projects, and providing commercial loans and other support such as, market access, capacity development, risk management, and networking.
The specific objectives of the hub are to: Stimulate establishment and growth of agrienterprises by agricultural science university students, improve agripreneurship skills among agricultural science students and enhance collaboration between the university and the private sector. The hub will encourage, nurture and support innovative agribusiness ideas and turn them into sound commercial ventures. The hub will facilitate development of bankable agribusiness proposals under the guidance of experienced mentors and offer supportive training to 1000 students. Moreover, it will provide loans to 10 student groups (total 50 students) and avail other facilities and build partnership with leading private agribusiness companies for effective transition, market access and other business services through collaborative agreements.
The hub envisions to have the following results: Agrienterprise incubator established and functional, Agripreneurship skills among agricultural science students improved, University-industry linkages enhanced. As a result, the hub will enable students to to create gainful employment, generate income for the youth and bridge succession gap in agribusiness and related value chains.
Mission
AGLEAD Incubation Hub promotes creativity, innovation and agrientrepreneurship through experiential learning to enhance youth empowerment and job creation.
Vision
To be a centre of excellence in agri-incubation through innovation, agri-entrepreneurship and climate smart agribusiness.
Objectives
The main objective of the Hub is to encourage students, to identify business ideas which solve local problems, validate, refine and nurture the ideas to be a commercial agrienterprise which will contribute to job creation and promote economic health of the country through agrienterprise incubation. Therefore, the agribusiness incubation hub seeks to encourage growth of sustainable commercially viable agribusiness small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) by supporting the development of well-structured agribusiness projects, and providing commercial loans and other financial products/services available for investment in a range of agribusiness ventures, market access, capacity development, risk management, and networking. The specific objectives are:
- Stimulate establishment and growth of agrienterprises by agricultural science university students
- Improve agripreneurship skills among agricultural science students.
- Enhance collaboration between the university and the private sector.