Ambitious Zambia: Envisage Valid8 Bootcamp - Three Days Full of Innovation

From left: Joseph Chakopo (Team Lead at Ambitious Zambia), Stephen Muraga (Head of Operations and Projects at Ambitious Zambia), Tiia Madekivi (Head of HR at Ambitious..Africa Global Team), Innocent Shatamuka (Head of Community at Ambitious Zambia), Jenna Kirkkari (Head of Partnerships at Ambitious Zambia)

Ambitious Zambia hosted Envisage Valid8 Bootcamp on 26th to 28th November in Lusaka, bringing youth together and teaching them entrepreneurial mindset and skills as well as creating an environment and support for piloting of innovations during the training process.

On Thursday morning almost 20 excited youth showed up to Global platform, a co-working space, a perfect venue to create impactful ideas. The day started by introduction of participants as well as Ambitious.Africa after which we moved on to learn more about opposite thinking. After the insightful session, the youth were divided to 5 groups to brainstorm innovative agri-related ideas with the help of opposite thinking framework.

After the lunch break, we had the honor to receive guest speech from the Embassy of Finland - Lusaka, highlighting long collaboration between Finland and Zambia as well as the importance of youth entrepreneurship. The day continued with a great session about Customer Validation by Victor Lindahl, one of the Co-founders of Ambitious.Africa. Lastly, the concept of Business Model Canvas was introduced, after which the youth were sent home to develop their ideas further.

On Friday morning we continued developing Customer Validation and Business Model Canvases for our innovative ideas. We also listened to an instightful speech about pitching by Maija Luukka, the Head of Strategy at Ambitious.Africa, the participants also asked her many interesting questions. Then it was time to continue working and start practicing own pitches, which were presented on Saturday. The teams were improving their presentations and pitches in the evening while also getting feedback from their mentors.

The participants and some of the organizers of the Envisage Valid8 Bootcamp.

The Envisage Valid8 Bootcamp culminated to a pitching competition on Saturday. Before that we had a rehearsal round and feedback session, afterwards, it was time to present the 3-minute pitches to the jury. The competition was super tight, and we heard pitches of very good and potential business ideas in the agriculture sector. It was amazing to see the results of the hard work and effort the teams had done in the past 3 days. The results were following:

1.   Tigwilizane 14,6 / 20

2.   Imbuto - Agro 14 / 20

3.   Sunga - Agri 13,6 / 20

4.   Agrilife 13 / 20 & Jara 13 / 20

We would like to congratulate all the participants once more on the amazing work they did. Big thank you to the whole organizing team, participants, and all the people that made the Bootcamp happen. Special thanks to Nyamukabook and Fortressmedia for your support, and Global platform for hosting us. We are already looking forward to bring more amazing people together again and enable more innovative programs for more excited youth!

“I am very grateful for attending the Bootcamp training. I would really love this program to continue because it has really helped me learn how to pitch of which I never knew. It has opened my mindset. I have learnt to be confident on how to do business.I have learnt to be reliable and to accommodate every client I will come across.”

Thandiwe

“The bootcamp was an awesome event, despite being short it was so impactful to the sense that our minds were twisted from seeing problems like other people do but to see business opportunities in every problem.” Innocent

“Bootcamp is the most important initiative that Ambitious Zambia has brought, especially to youths. I am able to think outside the box about problems affecting our small scale farmers in Zambia and looking at ways on how we can find the solutions to help out our farmers.” Nkwanisha

”It was an awesome bootcamp, I had a chance to polish up on my business skills and improve my approach towards a problem. And It was awesome to meet other business minded people!” James

“The Bootcamp experience was incredible. I learned a lot from it, one of the benefits was knowing how to pitch.” Vivian

“The recently ended Envisage Valid8 Bootcamp was one that was indeed practical and exceptional. During that we were introduced into real life, drifting away from all theoretical satisfaction into magnificent practicability and that immensely cultivated an understanding in most of us on how things really work and the hunger [and zeal] to put to work all that we learnt. A million thanks to Ambitious Zambia and the whole lot of Ambitious Community.”

Alfonso

Written by: Tiia Madekivi, the Head of HR at Ambitious.Africa