The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Liberia in collaboration with the Booker Washington Institute is conducting a week long business development plan training from August 13 – 17 on the BWI campus.

This is a pilot project being funded under the Business Opportunities Support Services Project (BOSS) of UNDP Liberia, as a follow up activity to the Business development plan competition launched in June this year for BWI students.

The entrepreneurship challenge (Business Plan Competition) is designed for graduating senior students and recent graduates of the BWI to explore supply chain gaps and corporate social investment (CSI) window of companies.

Since the launch of the competition, 24 business idea applications have been submitted by students and are being evaluated.

The top 10-12 students with the best ideas are expected to participate in the upcoming training. After which, they will develop full business development plans which will again be evaluated by an independent panel. The best five (5) will be selected to receive seed funding to start up those businesses.

Depending on the availability of funds and the quality of the business plans, the number could be stepped up to 7.

Recalling the words of UNDP Team Leader for its Sustainable Economic Transformation (SET) Program during the launch of the competition “We want you to become your own bosses,” Mr. Dorsla Farcarthy told the students during the launch.

The long-term goal is to incorporate entrepreneurship as a cross cutting training subject into the BWI syllabus, and once successful, replicate same into other institutions across the country.