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Women E-business Platform
Problem statement
Women are most of the population in the world, in Africa and in Rwanda women constitute 52% of the total population (NISR, 2012) Almost in the whole world whenever you talk of women many people suspect that you are likely going to talk about women illiteracy, inequality, their poverty, domestic violence, they are voiceless in making a decision as well as resource ownership. In Africa, women are on the disadvantageous side and the situation becomes worse when it comes to business ownership, entrepreneurship, and business development.
Government of Rwanda reports show large gaps in gender and business distribution where a total of 142,029 businesses, of which 101,665 are male owned (71.58%), 38,017 females (26, 77%), and 2,347 with no apparent sex identity (NS) (1.65%).
How the problem is solved.
According to Elevate “Today, out of the 132 million girls worldwide who are out of school including 52 million in Sub-Saharan Africa alone 16 million will never set foot in a classroom “(Elevate,2019).
Few women in the world have abandoned their traditional offices “the kitchens” and invaded the board rooms and big offices .In Rwanda, women constitute more than 52% of the population but the majority of these are still in their “traditional office” due to lack of entrepreneurship, training, workshop, lack access to finance and gender discrimination stereotype.
Women E-Business is filling the gap in Rwanda/Worldwide where our platform offers business skills and entrepreneurship. We connect ladies to investors as well as grants. If our solution is scaled globally, we plan to help more than 30% of unemployed women and girls to get entrepreneurship and business skills to be self-employed or performing well in their career aspirations. We work both online and offline. We aim to increase the number of girls and young women participating in formal and informal learning and training as well as strengthen competencies, particularly in STEM and digital literacy, for girls and young women to effectively transition from education to employment with focus on business skills. We will help women to those women to turn their opportunities around into profitable business venture such as agribusiness, handcrafts, opening barber shop…
Our Beneficiaries
Our solution target girls/women aged 16+ especially local marginalized ones who did not get chance to continue education as well as unemployed one who graduated from school. We will also work with other people who are interested to learn how to become successful in business. Our solution will give them access to both academic learning content , skills development content in entrepreneurship, access to training as well as connecting them with opportunities available to help boost their personal skills as well as to boost their financial well being.
Components of Women E-Business website
Our solution is a combination of both -learning and off-line skills development platform that provide learners (disadvantageous girls/ladies) e-books, video/audio lessons, the podcast in entrepreneurship, training, workshop as well as connecting them with the investors, loans and grants. We will use contents from different books and authors that are accepted on international standard as well as partnering with business institution to give our beneficial webinars, seminars as well as workshops.
Entrepreneurship skills-Personal characteristics and interpersonal skills, critical and creative thinking skills, Practical skills, digital skills required in business.
Training and mentorship- workshop and meeting with women who become successful in their venture.
Opportunities, loan and grants -connecting them with investors, financial institution, competition, awards, government agencies.
We believe that focusing on women in business will be one of the key means of attaining SDGs for Rwanda and Africa.
Theory of change
After getting access to both academic learning content, skills development content in entrepreneurship, training, connected to opportunities available to boost personal skills as well as to boost their financial wellbeing we will reduce the financial problem for starting and growing businesses, lack of business and marketing skills, combining family responsibilities and business life, insufficient business information, lack of ICT skills and all those impacts negatively the success of women businesses. Where we will expand the market for women entrepreneurs in Rwanda, by increasing the number of trade fairs and provide support for women entrepreneurs to participate in many trade fairs since it is an opportunity for marketing women entrepreneurs' Products.
We will increase training and workshop for women entrepreneurs in communication skills, Business plan, ICT use in their activities, training related to their type of business as well as training that will help women to start and expand their business, management and technical skills entrepreneurs. This will create a huge number of jobs and well as being one of the keys means of attaining SDGs for Rwanda and Africa.
We will track progress by involving local authority to work with us to monitor and evaluate the impacts of beneficiaries after receiving training. We will combine women in cooperative so that they can get funds/loan in microfinance institution as well as requesting funds from NGOs. We will do annual report to tackle our progress as well as trying to meet beneficial on individual basis
State your goals
Our 1-year goals are the following
Having designed platform secured with only lessons related to entrepreneurship skills and launching our service in English, Kinyarwanda, French and Kiswahili language to reach maximum people with technology as well as making advertisement to have many beneficiaries.
Finding and intensification of a partnership of beneficiaries, with higher learning institutions, local authorities, tutors, mentors, women CEOs, financial institutions as well as private institutions and NGOs.
Addition of opportunities and grants platform with contents for grants and other opportunities available.
Growing to impact 1000 users on our platform and 1000 users of our service offline.
Five years goals are the following
Creating the huge number of employment opportunities of women through their skills and opportunities in generating multiple incomes to all stakeholders especially those who were neglected in getting fundamental for starting and running business and funds for their business venture across Africa and other continents.
Expanding our service to more than 1,00,000 women and ladies and other stakeholders across Africa and other peat of the world.
What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?
In Rwanda, 19% of the population who are aged 15-24 faces major obstacles of entering in the workforce. Adolescent girls face the added problems of widespread early childbearing, high fertility and gender violence. Most young women are less likely than their male peers to compete in secondary education, limiting their opportunities and ability to work their way out of poverty. Low tertiary enrolment is a vast challenge where only 4% children in Africa are expected to enter a graduate and postgraduate institution in which major numbers are boys.
Most women believe that they cannot accomplish their career aspiration, cannot achieve their dream, cannot use the internet properly and they can’t own their business and become the CEOs!
Our stakeholders have the barriers of ignorance in using ICT for taking online lessons and services it provides.
Low capital from our project and inability of beneficiaries to attract any grants because sometimes they are unnoticed in the eyes of donors and banks consider them as people who are not bankable so that to get a loan to become more problems.
Few women who involved in entrepreneurship have demonstrated capabilities of doing business such as Oprah Winfrey who are among the richest person in the world. We need technology that helps disadvantageous ladies to get access to business/digital skills, personal development and connecting them to investors and grants to create their own business venture. Which is Women E-Business
What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?
Our solution is a combination of both -learning and off-line skills development platform that provide learners (disadvantageous girls/ladies) e-books, video/audio lessons, a podcast in entrepreneurship, training, workshop as well as connecting them with the investors, loans and grants.
Entrepreneurship skills-Personal characteristics and interpersonal skills, critical and creative thinking skills, Practical skills, digital skills required in business.
Training and mentorship- workshop and meeting with women who become successful in their venture.
Opportunities, loan and grants -connecting them with investors, financial institution, competition, awards, government agencies.
We believe that focusing on women in business will be one of the key means of attaining SDGs for Rwanda and Africa.
After getting access to both academic learning content, skills development content in entrepreneurship, training, connected to opportunities available to boost personal skills as well as to boost their financial wellbeing women will reduce the financial problem for starting and growing businesses, lack of business and marketing skills, combining family responsibilities and business life, insufficient business information, lack of ICT skills and all those impacts negatively the success of women businesses. Where we will expand market for women entrepreneurs in Rwanda, by increasing the number of trade fairs and provide support for women entrepreneurs to participate in many trade fairs since it is an opportunity for marketing women entrepreneurs' Products.
We will increase training and workshop for women entrepreneurs in communication skills, Business plan, ICT use in their activities, training related to their type of business as well as training that will help women to start and expand their business, management and technical skills entrepreneurs. This will create huge number of jobs and well as being one of the keys means of attaining SDGs for Rwanda and Africa.
Our beneficiaries will form a kind of cooperatives or associations so that they can get access to loan from financial institutions that we want to partner with so that they can put in practice what they’ve learn in our training.
Share your story (your narrative)
When I started my bachelor’s degree in university, I used to ask myself why Government of Rwanda reports show large gaps in gender and business distribution where a total of 142,029 businesses, of which 101,665 are male-owned (71.58%), 38,017 females (26, 77%), and 2,347 with no apparent sex identity (NS) (1.65%). I get shocked when I read an article in “New times” a local magazine where I identified that In Rwanda, 19% of the population who are aged 15-24 faces major obstacles of entering in the workforce. Adolescent girls face the added problems of widespread early childbearing, high fertility, and gender violence. Most young women are less likely than their male peers to compete in secondary education, limiting their opportunities and ability to work their way out of poverty. Low tertiary enrolment is a vast challenge where only 4% of children in Africa are expected to enter a graduate and postgraduate institution in which major numbers are boys
We come with idea that can impact women to have good business venture where our solution target girls/women aged 16+ especially local marginalized ones who did not get chance to continue education as well as unemployed one who graduated from school. We also work with other people who are interested to learn how to become successful in business. Our solution gives them access to both academic learning content, skills development content in entrepreneurship, access to training as well as connecting them with opportunities available to help boost their personal skills as well as to boost their financial well being. in the following services.
Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.
- 1. 1. Innovative of Women E-business
Our innovative platform and service have the potential of being the right one that others in addressing the challenges of disadvantageous girls/women and other beneficiaries because female are not motivated in business and digital literacy because of lack of support/training programs in entrepreneurship as well as mentorship, advocacy and access to finance and other opportunities that can help them to create their own business and create the huge number of job opportunities in their community.
All service will be provided online/offline using a smartphone, computer, CDs, flash disks or SMS. We will provide workshop and training to clearly for beneficiaries observe the gap in the society and helping them to meet with their role model in business sectors to share them with inspiration and their journey to success. We will make a strong connection between them and investors, financial institution, opportunities, a competition to get fund to advance their business. They will believe in themselves and become financial independence
- 2. Core technology
Our platform is based on the Web(World Wide Web). Short Message Service and USSD will be also used. We use also hard disks such as flash disks, CDs, Memory card to make our content be accessed offline. For those who access the internet, use the website to access learning contents while that one who did not have internet will use flash disks, CDs and memory card and Short Message Services to access our contents offline. They will be connected to investors through the website or by short message services. We also have Flash discs and CDs as an option to store our content especially videos, eBooks etc for communities that may not be able to access the internet or those who may not access computers as well as using projectors to present about our contents in training, workshop and mentorship program.
- 3. Working capabilities of our technology
Today, most people are taking online courses for certification to advance their career and internet and social media have big impacts to share contents to huge number of people. Computers and smartphone are widely used in our country and they are playing a big impact in both urban and rural areas especially in the services provided by the government. We will use this benefit to help women to get contents that are related to business skills. USSD and Short Message Services are widely used by the consumer of MTN, TIGO and AIRTEL for multiple services such as checking airtime, mobile money and getting notice from government agencies. We will use this technology to provide skills and benefits to beneficiaries.
1.4. ways to financial sustainability
In order to perform well our business, we plan various ways for resources mobilization and funding acquisition as follows; donations and grants from Non-Government Organization that support women and girls, selling some services through premium subscription of our beneficiaries , raising investment capital, or a combination of all and loan From SACCOs. Also Raising grants from stakeholders would be part of funding program . Once we get registered from government licensing and raising investment capital will be needed to implement our solution in making connection with other partners.
We will also build a strong good partnership with microfinance, government agencies to help women to get both capital(loan)/grants and other assistances. We also planned to show aptitude and impacts of our innovation as strategies of finding funds from other stakeholders. We hope to partner with like-minded organisations such as NGOs that will be willing to cover some budgets/items on the budget. We also intend to raise funding to help us cover this financial gap. We are intending to engage local telecommunication as well as international companies to offer us integration to platforms such as USSD and SMS services
Your Final Proposal for challenge
yes
Hi. An important concept and need to grow the economic development across the board. It is hard to understand your actual offer and how it is different from other things on offer in the market globally or locally. The need is clear but the solution needs more concrete description and placement within the market place, from my perspective.
Thanks and goodluck
Hello, You have nicely described your short time and long time goals. I have two questions for you:
1. What kind of women owned businesses do you promote through your platform? 2. How many women entrepreneurs have received investment services through your platform so far?
Hi Jean,
How will you reach more than 1,000,000 women and girls, worldwide in five years, through 1000 users in your platform and 1000 users offline?
Great concept, can't get clearly about it's sustainability
Greetings for your holistic thought. I want to propose the Merger of your ones with
“Cybersec-pro Bono” due to be focusing over the same Target Groups and The same (Almost) Africa Region in greater sense.
Wouldn’t it be synergistic enough to be entailing (with sustained nature) your Major classes of undeserved to be transformed Into a Digital Secured Asset for the Nation having Skills and experience to be termed as competent.
Users tagged:
Hi Jean Claude, great initiative, congrats! A few things are unclear
in the solution part it would be great to get a % of women you're hoping to help instead of saying "we shall help many women and girls to get entrepreneurship" - this sounds vague and it's not clear what the addressable market is
maybe this will help in terms of thinking of addressable market: https://www.process.st/tam-sam-som/
Also is this open to specific businesses, what is the criteria other than being a girl/woman?
And how will you track and measure their progress?
Thanks and best of luck!
I thank you for conceiving such an idea to empower disadvantageous girls and women mainly living in undeserved communities. I have this to say to you: Don't worry about the resources you don't have otherwise you will be stuck at fundraising. Don't worry about onboarding too many facilitators, otherwise you will be stuck at not training anyone. Start with what you have to get what you don't have. Cut the features, the too many categories and be impactful in them. Set the fire by launching something and use feedbacks to iterate and change a few things. Keep the energy up!
Hi jean, i like your idea. especially that you will first deliver training and literacy to women before they access the investment fund that is really smart. i am interested to learn how you will make profits from your system, are these women suppose to pay you? are the investors suppose to pay you? or you are looking for a grant and operate as an organisation that is funded by UN as you are concentrating on solving one of their SDGs. also another thing to consider is involving many stakeholders so that your system can be embraced and scaled faster
Hi Jean!
Firstly, congrats for your initiative, it sounds great.
A few suggestions, if you would like to take them into consideration:
When stating the problem, I would go into more details about the problem itself, maybe you can find some numbers showing there are less women in business ownership than men, etc? Also, maybe you can find some explanation why that is i.e. the lack of access to education, confidence?
- Great idea! It would be useful to provide details about the target audience, demographics, explain how you would ensure access to your service.
- I was wondering if you have considered keeping track of the progress in order to prove the effectiveness of your service.
- Explain and provide some evidence how will your service lead to higher employment rates?
-it is great that you explained the problem itself, but for me it is not very clear what was the situation before and after covid-19 pandemic.
-Is your solution unique? How does it differ from other similar iniatives?
Congrats for getting so far and best of luck!
Best,
Ingrid
Users tagged:
Hi, I find your idea very well decribed and backed by statistics, which makes it more readable and easy to understand. Besides other opportunities you've mentioned loans and grants. What is your strategy to attract inverstors in offering the funding? What other similar organizations exist locally and what is your competitive advantage? How do you plan to reach to women/girls to involve them in the process, in other words how do women get to know you? And last but not least, have you considered expanding your platform to other underrepresented groups, besides women?
Thanks in advance. Best of luck of your idea!
Status label added: Mentor feedback received
Hi Jean?Nice idea , what is your business sustainability
Hello Jean
Great Idea.
Kindly elaborate the prospects and the onboarding of potential directors in the guidance of the project?
Does you system implement the use of Sacco's and Round tables done by groups of women in Rwanda?
All the best I think the concept is well laid out ,you could always try to expand more on the specific numbers of women you intend to have to use the system.
Keep at it Jean
Kind Regards.
Status label added: Community feedback received
The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.
louder for the people in the back! women rule world. how will you generate enough supply (investors, mentors, etc) on your platform? where do you get the content from? is it pan-african (can I use that content in Kenya as well?) And what is the business model? where do you get your money from?
I am also running a e-commerce business. all the best for your project :)
Hi Jean Claude, thank you for this submission. The concept is good just work on the numbers/milestones and also try to package your project. We definitely need more women in tech entrepreneurship. All the best
I am always all in for products and services created for women.
Here is my feedback:
Your problem needs to be more sleek and straight to the point. Possibly coming from the point of view of the women you serve. In my experience are good indicators of the bigger picture but never explain the nitty gritty of the individual problem. You may want to interview a group of women who are somehow already entrepreneurial/selling some good and services and explore their experience. You may also want to see what they have already been doing somehow in terms of learning about business.
You solution is hidden behind too much context. We would want to see a solution from the first sentence onward, explaining how your solution solves exactly every single aspect of the women's problems. You mission/vision statement of seeing more women in entrepreneurship is absolutely clear: getting more women into entrepreneurship and business.
As I continue reading on, I am discovering new elements and directions such as STEM education, Employment, and different target groups. Careful, we sometimes want to use messages we see out there (Buzzwords and sentences) and we suddenly lack focus and dilute our unique vision. Take comfort and confidence in being focussed and pride yourself in target and impact a small well defined group of beneficiaries. A tip for being focused on your beneficiaries : interview around 10 of your imagined stakeholders, let them speak, i twill naturally appear who would be more inclined to your service because they already tried to solve the problem somehow.
Your value proposition is clear, however generic. I, as a women, can find all these programmes online and elsewhere within Rwanda and other countries in the neighbourhood. I suggest once you have identified who is in your beneficiary group, you will be in a better posistion to tailor your value proposition by either being more specific, or cut off some services together. Each component of the platform seems like a huge undertaking in itself.
Your theory of change does not emphasis the relationship between your problem and your solution as well refers to your vision.
Your goal in the first year is the year where you adjust and keep learning from your target group ; - not the year where you are running after customers without having tested your idea.
The technology materials you are willing to use for your core training service is highly relevant to the material realities of many women on the ground. You may perhaps check further their material realities when you meet with them.
A final word of advice as well as question: who else as a woman do you have in your team?
Hi, discuss how you closed the gap between your challenges and opportunities. Elaborate the mechanisms, process, and key activities of your MVP. Also discuss the feasibility of your solution. Share if there's any success stories.
You can start working on the final submission form. Watch the final webinar. It will help you tremendously. Remember to submit the video and the challenge ends on 31 August.
Users tagged:
Status label added: Expert feedback received