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Opportunity opens for 16 young Nigerian graduate entrepreneurs at Barry
May 17, 2010
Gladys Amador
(305)899-4919
Barry and ADPED Inc. to train young African entrepreneurs in State Department Program
Miami Shores, Fla. - Barry University’s Andreas School of Business and the Miami-based Africa-Diaspora non-profit, ADPED, Inc., will train 16 Nigerian youths in an entrepreneurship development at the business school through a State Department program.
The Barry-ADPED partnership is one of 11 projects funded in Africa by the U.S. State Department under the Young Entrepreneur Program (YEP) which seeks to promote entrepreneurial thinking, job creation, and business planning and management skills for emerging young professionals worldwide. The Barry-ADPED project brings 16 young Nigerian entrepreneurs to the United States this summer, 2010 and next 2011, to participate in a four-week training program at Barry.
Each young entrepreneur will formulate a business plan that can be deployed upon returning to Nigeria. They will also visit local businesses and small ventures, as well as organizations that support entrepreneurs such as banks and other financial institutions, venture capitalists, as well as governmental and non-governmental agencies that track and support economic and entrepreneurial activity. Ten professionals including ADPED leaders and Barry faculty members will travel to Nigeria for one week to assist colleagues at their partner institutions to develop their own entrepreneurship training program.
Under the theme “Connecting People Creating Understanding,” the U.S. State Department professional exchange program provides grants to U.S. nonprofit organizations in order to carry out exchange programs that support the professional development of foreign participants. The purpose of each exchange program is to engage with foreign leaders in critical professions, to demonstrate respect for foreign cultures and to promote mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.
In that spirit the Barry University-ADPED Inc., partnership will connect people and other institutions from South Florida with their Nigerian counterparts to tackle one problem in specific; the high rate of youth unemployment that is believed to be at the root of social and political upheavals in many developing countries. For instance, the South Florida’s division of National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) has already donated several hundreds of entrepreneurship textbooks to ADPED, Inc., for distribution in Nigeria.
Barry professors will collaborate with their counterparts in the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile Ife to strengthen their entrepreneurship curriculum. The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) will also partner with the project to strengthen entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.
Barry’s business school is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International, the highest standard of achievement for business schools, worldwide.
For more information contact Dr. Manuel J. Tejeda, professor at Barry University’s Andreas School of Business and principal investigator at 305-899-3525 or mtejeda@mail.barry.edu
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