After the well celebrated launch of the Moonshot initiative in Burundi by the UNDP office in collaboration with the government of Burundi, the Youth bank, the women investment bank, the program of automatization of youths (PAEEJ), Burundian youths and women were presented with a great opportunity to create, get support and launch and scale their businesses. With an overall target of 40,000 youths and women entrepreneurs across the country, this initiative creates a pathway for inclusivity of women and youths from different communities, economic backgrounds and economic activities across the country to acquire 21st century business skills, benefit from a well-structured and personalized business development assistance, get in touch with high level and well experienced mentors, coaches, trainers and investors and get the privileged access to funding through financial credits offered by partner financial institutions of the moonshot initiative.
It is clear to say that entrepreneurship is a journey and the more innovative the solution is, the more delicate it becomes and thus creating a necessity for a support system that can enable the innovators not only to build successful businesses but also built business personalities that can be able to adapt to dynamic business evolutions and continuously innovate.
Program objectives
1. To support the youth and women entrepreneurs in creating validated business plans
2. To promote the inclusivity of youths and women entrepreneurs in Burundi
3. To offer support in market analysis, customer discovery, and feasibility study
4. To support the creation of product and service prototypes
5. To support the creation of brand identities and product designs
6. To support in the design of sales and marketing strategies
7. To promote networking and collaboration between the entrepreneurs
8. To support in the creation of go-to-market strategies
BujaHub’s incubation program was tailored to the most relevant and innovative incubation and acceleration approach on human-centered design entrepreneurship, which provided entrepreneurs from all sectors with an innovative approach to business design and market penetration. BujaHub’s standard infrastructure ensured the success of its innovation support activities through a well-equipped and spacious office in Bujumbura and Gitega respectively that can accommodate 80 and 30 coworking spaces with access to internet connection, a training room with a capacity of 30 and 25 trainees per session, cafeteria, and access to a meeting room with projection screens and dashboard, an administration office that offers access to printers/photocopiers and soon 3D machines.
Participants identification and selection.
BujaHub through its rich database of youth and women innovators and entrepreneurs across the country, leveraged the existing data of beneficiaries of the second and third edition of the innovation week program financed by the UNDP Burundi as the priority category of participants. Moreover, BujaHub also extended application invitations to youth and women entrepreneurs from the respective provinces, Bujumbura, Gitega, and Ngozi. The beneficiary identification and selection were therefore carefully carried out through the steps as below.
1. Invitations to apply for the incubation of the moonshot initiative were sent to all laureates of the second and third edition of the innovation week 2022 and 2023 funded and organized by the UNDP
2. Invitation to apply for the incubation of the moonshot initiative were sent to all laureates of the digital ladies’ program funded by the UNDP
3. Invitations to apply for the incubation of the moonshot initiative were sent to existing groups of entrepreneurs in the respective provinces
4. Invitation to apply for the incubation of the moonshot initiative were sent through different social media, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and LinkedIn
5. All the applications were thoroughly analyzed, and 150 entrepreneurs were preselected and invited for interviews (appendix 1)
6. After the interview, a selection committee was set up to analyze the results of the interviews and the 70 entrepreneurs were selected as follows.
1. 40 entrepreneurs from Bujumbura mairie
2. 15 entrepreneurs from Gitega
3. 15 entrepreneurs from Ngozi
Selection criteria
The selection of beneficiaries for the moonshot initiative incubation was a major step in the whole process of the incubation and was directed by very specific criteria created to allow for the entrepreneurs displaying the most potential capacity to succeed and scale in the local and international market.
These criteria are as follows:
1. Companies displaying the most potential of growth
2. Companies with understanding of the market problem
3. Sector of activity of the company
4. Companies owned by women
5. Companies that had not received any funding
6. Companies that have a vision
Attendance and participation
The incubation for the three provinces allocated to BujaHub was conducted in different approaches through an incubation calendar (appendix 2) as highlighted below:
1. Common session – These sessions brought together all the 70 entrepreneurs from the three provinces
2. Provincial session – These sessions included only the entrepreneurs from the respective province i.e., 40 Bujumbura, 15 Gitega, and 15 Ngozi.
3. offsite sessions – These sessions were conducted through field visits by the BujaHub team of coaches and mentors to specific companies to meet with them on their place of work and work on a one-on-one approach.
Every session had an attendance sheet for all present participants to register their names, the name of their businesses, their province of provenance, email address and phone number. All the attendance sheets were compiled, and analyzed data was tabulated as follows. (Appendix 3)
Province No. entrepreneurs percentage percentage percentage
Month 1 Month 2 Month 3
Bujumbura mairie – 40 – 89% – 90% – 95%
Gitega – 15 – 95% – 97% – 96%
Ngozi – 15 – 82% – 92% – 97%
Gender Representation
BUJUMBURA MAIRIE GITEGA NGOZI TOTAL
MALE 17 9 10 36
FEMALE 23 6 5 34
Sector representation.
The 70 entrepreneurs selected for the moonshot initiative incubation comprised of businesses from different sectors.
Sector of activity Number of entrepreneur
Arts & culture 9
Agriculture 4
Breeding 3
Agri-food transformation 14
TIC 13
E-commerce 1
Human Health 4
Animal Health 2
Industry & production 5
Environment 4
Transportation 1
Cosmetic 3
Insurance 1
Clean & renewable Energy 1
Education 1
Agro-pastoral 4
Program success indicators
As a result of the 3 months incubation program run by the BujaHub under the support of the UNDP, following the monitoring and evaluation carried out by the BujaHub team in collaboration with UNDP staff on the successful evolution of every business and founders, impressive indicators were collected through various means including interviews, reports, feedback forms and testimonials.
This data was collected, analyzed, and interpreted as below.
1. 70 businesses have successfully created their business plans, awaiting validation,
2. All the 70 businesses were able to carry out their visibility studies and improved their understanding of their offering and the needs of the consumers,
3. 40 businesses were completely rebranded and 9 were redesigned,
4. 12 businesses were able to create their prototypes,
5. 57 businesses were able to re-design their products,
6. 70 businesses developed their business strategies,
7. 65 businesses redesigned their pricing and marketing strategies,
8. 68 businesses have attested to be aware of existing competition and are ready for market.
9. 12 businesses acquired their legal status