The Partnership in Business Entrepreneurship and Leadership Transformation (PIBELT) is a two-year, $500,000 project that aims to strengthen Ethiopia's "innovation ecosystem" through a dynamic collaboration among IU, Ivy Tech Community College, and Bahir Dar University (BDU) and Debre Markos University (DMU) in Ethiopia.
Strengthening Ethiopia's entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem
The project team alongside American and local entrepreneurs, business representatives, and start-up experts – will:
- adapt, co-design, and deliver extended, in-country pre-acceleration and acceleration workshops for students at the universities and for young entrepreneurs in the market corridor between Debre Markos and Bahir Dar,
- initiate innovation and entrepreneurship content and activities in the universities' curricula,
- engage university administration in training and capacity-building, including U.S. exposure visits, to promote long-term success, sustainability, and self-reliance for entrepreneurship activities.
- establish Innovation and Business Entrepreneurship and Incubation Centers (iBEICs) at BDU and DMU, including resources for ongoing mentorship, learning opportunities, and future scale-up of PIBELT activities to other regions in Ethiopia.
PIBELT is led by OID and funded by U.S. Department of State's new University Partnership Initiative (UPI), launched in 2019. The goal of the UPI is to support higher education links that expose African students, faculty, and administrators to the diversity and innovation on American campuses, while fostering increased institutional collaboration between U.S. and African universities.
