This fourth edition of the BIC Africa Acceleration Programme 2024 will support 20 women entrepreneurs in total, including 15 from the country projects Angola, Comoros, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Somalia and 5 others from other Sub-Saharan African countries willing to scale their businesses, while contributing to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The programme will run from April to July 2024 for 4 months, and it will focus on established post-revenue women entrepreneurs with a registered startup or business, across all sectors and business types through a combination of online training modules, coaching sessions, individual exercises, and a networking session with women experts from Africa and Europe with relevant experience in supporting innovative entrepreneurs and start-ups.

Programme Details

They are looking for established women entrepreneurs who are willing to explore growing (and potentially internationalising) their business with the support of the BIC Africa Acceleration Programme.

Twenty selected women entrepreneurs will benefit from a full online training course (6 modules); will participate in dedicated group coaching sessions (4 sessions) to deepen some of the topics addressed during the training; will participate in 2 networking sessions; will be introduced to the alumnae network of BIC Africa Women Acceleration programme and gain access to other networking and market linkage opportunities and events.

The core programme will include:

• 6 online interactive training modules (each lasting 1.5 hours), on topics such as Mission and Unique Value Proposition; Product Development; Business Model; Team & Partnerships; Finance; Marketing.
• 4 online group coaching sessions (each lasting 1.5 hours), on topics such as Leadership and influencing skills; Mastering personal and business finances; Storytelling and pitch training; Time management and prioritisation.
• 2 Networking sessions (at the beginning and at the end of the programme)
• Access to support documents and recordings of the sessions
• Integration in the BIC Africa Community of women entrepreneurs, with visibility on the BIC Africa website, integration into the LinkedIn group for this Community, as well as access to other networking and market linkage opportunities and events.

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Benefits

The programme will also open the door for further opportunities and awards:

• A Certificate of recognition will be sent in an electronic format by EBN – BIC Africa project for those who successfully completed the 12-week course acceleration programme (attending at least 9 out of the 12 sessions).
• Remote one-to-one Mentoring sessions will be offered to high performing participants selected by the BIC Africa expert committee, who as such will get the chance to be matched with a European incubation expert who will accompany their growth trajectory. Further details will be shared at the start of the programme.
• Other Business Awards (e.g. additional support, highlighted visibility on BIC Africa website, invitation to participate in a BIC Africa event etc.) will be available to high performing participants selected by the BIC Africa expert committee.

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Eligibility for BIC Africa Acceleration Programme

The preferred candidate should:

• Be a woman (minimum age of 18-years-old) founder/owner of already established business with an operational team and a strong development potential.
• Be available between April and July 2024 to participate in the Programme with maximum 2 hours per week for online sessions + time to work individually and reflect upon the learnings.
• Already running a start-up or company (it must be registered since at least 1 year) and seeking to scale up.
• Demonstrate commitment to actively participate in all the activities of the Acceleration Programme and assisting future developments of the programme.
• Have access to reliable internet connection.
• Have a good working knowledge of English language.

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Assessment Criteria

Once the eligibility check is performed; BIC Africa will review and evaluate the nominations using the following criteria and scoring:

1. Business description and business model: This criterion will assess the business overall, the entrepreneurial profile / team and how the company’s offer responds to market needs  (10 points)
2. Innovation dimension: This criterion assesses the innovative aspects of the product or service  (10 points)
3. Scalability: This criterion assesses the scalability of the product or service , and the feasibility of the company to achieve significant growth (10 points)
4. Impact: This criterion assesses how the solution is going to generate social and environmental impact, and preferably meet the UN SDGs (10 points)
5. Motivation: This criterion assesses the motivation expressed by the applicant in the pitch deck. (10 points)

50/50 is the max scoring. The minimum threshold for accessing the programme is 30/50

Application of BIC Africa Acceleration Programme

• Fill in the questions in the form on general information on the applicant and the business.
•  Prepare and Upload a Pitch Deck (in PowerPoint Presentation or PDF)
  • Important: For this, please download the PowerPoint Presentation template that we provide here:  Here  use it for the creation of your pitch deck and please follow the instructions inside! (Maximum file size: 10 Mo; Maximum no. of slides: 20, can be uploaded in the google application form either in a PPT or pdf format)
• Upload your CV