Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Linking African Agri-Business Incubators with Finland

7-11 September 2015. Helsinki, Finland. International Business Incubation, Co-creation and Innovation

This Event was organised by Häme University of Applied Sciences, School of Bio-economy and FARA. The visit was fully financed by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and co-organised by Impact Iglu, Makery, ThinkAfrica, GOInternational, Shalin, UniPID​, LUKE (FoodAfrica) , FIBREPRO.
in Agriculture.

Profiles of the Delegates Profiles of the Incubators and Networks​
Extract of the programme
Related
The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and African Agribusiness Incubation Network (AAIN) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Häme University of Applied Sciences (HAMK), Finland at the just concluded program on Linking African Agri-Business Incubators with the Finnish Social Enterprise and Innovation Ecosystems which until recently have concentrated on capacity building on forestry education institutions, innovative extension methodology and bioenergy.

The MoU states that partners are expected to explore different avenues of collaboration within the agriculture value chain from research and development technology transfer to improving the teaching and learning processes in agribusiness incubation.

In addition to understanding the HAMK innovative ways of encouraging entrepreneurship, the team visited different incubators including the Aalto Start up Center and the Design Factory to benchmark the startup ecosystem in Finland and to engage with innovative start-ups with solutions relevant to Africa.
The MOU will permit HAMK to increase its professional expertise and promote the opportunities for doing business with Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises from Finland to Africa. In exchange, some of the new businesses and start-ups from the incubators will target to provide outlets and marketing network for Finnish SMEs and vice versa and allows for more deepening and enlargement of the work that HAMK has been doing in Africa, which until recently have concentrated on capacity building on forestry education institutions, innovative extension methodology and bioenergy. Mr Ari Mikkola, Dean of HAMK School of Bioeconomy
Background
The African Agribusiness Incubator Network (AAIN) was established by FARA to support the business development within the continental framework. AAIN is a result of the FARA-UniBRAIN program which ​currently hosts 80 incubators, members and partners under AAIN in 54 African countries. Under UniBRAIN, the incubators have collectively commercialized over 75 Agribusiness technologies, created thousands of jobs and produced over 200 incubates. The research networks have supported over 137 SMEs to startup and expanded businesses along selected commodity value chains, while creating business networks of about 24,000 value chain actors engaged in agribusiness.

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