Opening remarks by Minister
The Hon. Minister of State for Trade and Cooperatives opened the second symposium day. Download his opening remarks here.
Sessions Day 1 available on YouTube
All sessions of day 1 are recorded and can now be found on YouTube. The sessions are split up in parts, every part is another video link. Have a look at our You Tube channel to find them all. Video material of day 2 will follow soon!
All presentations online now
We have collected all Powerpoint presentations from the symposium here for you, to be able to have another look at them.
Day 1
From Scaling to Impact
Financing Challenges: How to bridge the gap in the middle?
Pre & Post-Investment Development Services – BiD Network
Pre & Post-Investment Development Services – ANDE Network
Pre & Post-Investment Development Services – GrowthAfrica
Pre & Post-Investment Development Services – Unreasonable East Africa
Pre & Post-Investment Development Services – Open Capital Advisors
The Paradox – Social Business: is it a hype or reality?
Day 2
Focus on Impact: How to measure impact in a cost efficient way – ACUMEN
Focus on Impact: How to measure impact in a cost efficient way – ICS
Focus on Impact: How to measure impact in a cost efficient way – Yunus Social Business
Examples of succesful social businesses: Alizetics
Examples of succesful social businesses: Katu Honey
Examples of succesful social businesses: 4Africa
Welcome remarks day 2
Agriculture session: Agrics
Agriculture session: USAID
Agriculture session: Pearl Capital
Agriculture session: Kulika
Education session: Educate!
Youth as Changemakers – Vijana Reloaded
Closing SSBE2015
The Issues – survey amongst participants
Which issues need to be addressed to help social enterprises fulfil their potential? That’s the question we asked participants at the first day of the symposium. 60% of the attendees took time to fill out the questionnaire. Take a look at the Participants SSBE 2015 survey results here.
Accelerating growth
After the lunchbreak at day one of SSBE 2015 we continue with the panel session PRE & POST-INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT SERVICES. Moderator Mary Mwangi from ANDE Network East Africa starts with defining the term ‘the missing middle’. We are talking about organizations with 5-250 employees that seek growth capital between 20,000 and 2 million euros. They are too large for mutual funds, but too small either for traditional commercial capital.
Marloes Noppen from BiD Network opens the session with a presentation on the outcomes of their market research into business development services for SMEs, which revealed several inefficiences in the process. BiD Network prepares emerging market entrepreneurs for investors.
Johnni Kjelsgaard is founder of Growth Africa: “Social enterprises have the danger of becoming another hot way of saying NGO.” Growth Africa is an accelerator of start-ups that help entrepreneurs understand the fundamental shift in how they should run their business. He continues: “Accelerators should curate your approach to investors – so as not to waste your time or theirs. It is important to orient entrepreneurs about data – what are the kpi’s, how can they understand their impact – they need to develop an appreciation for this data.” “We are very conscious of not creating a level of dependency of the start-up”, he says, “we want them to stand on their own two feet. This is one of the reasons we curate and facilitate the networks necessary for entrepreneurs to find legal/accounting services.” “Entrepreneurs seem to jump from one incubator to the other these days. They aren’t very patient, while capital is.”
Kate Hanford, COO at Unreasonable East Africa, quotes Bernard Shaw:“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself – therefore we need the unreasonable man.” Unreasonable East Africa is another growth accelator. Kate: “It’s important that impact is baked into the business model – this means that the company generates both social and/or environmental and financial value.” “Advisory support is expensive – we see a high demand for this.”
Nicole DeMarsh, principal at Open Capital Advisors: “On the one side we were hearing from entrepreneurs that they have great ideas but can’t find capital – on the other side, investors are interested in investing, but can’t find the right entrepreneurs – we felt there was a missing link and wanted to bridge that gap.” Open Capital Advisors help rapidly growing, high-potential, African enterprises prepare for and achieve growth, while also forming close partnerships with investors and market innovators to help deploy capital, build industries, and increase value chain efficiency. “Whether you are in Uganda or Silicon Valley – an investor is going to ask for the sky”, says Nicole, “at the seed capital stage you may see the biggest disconnect between what the investor takes out of the business. It’s important to stage your investment requirements. Investors want compensation for risk – what is the risk: both financially and from an impact perspective.”
Symposium officially opened by ambassador
And the symposium is officially opened! H.E. Alphons Hennekens, ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Uganda, gave his welcome remarks. Ronald Messelink, executive director of ICS and Titus van der Spek, social business consultant at Context, kicked off with the first session: FROM SCALING TO IMPACT – Interplay between social businesses, social entrepreneurs, investors & corporations. Titus: “Social entrepreneurship is like trying to juggle three balls: people, planet and profit.”
After the break Veronica Kalema took over as moderator for the next session: FINANCING CHALLENGES: How to bridge the gap in the middle? Sheena Raikundalia from Intellecap is one of the panel members: “A good idea is not enough, you must bring in pros to help develop and plan your idea.” Edward M. Isingoma from Pearl Capital Partners added: “Good record keeping will accelerate your agenda to get funding. Investors want this more than anything else.” “To properly measure impact, you must invest equally in M&E”, says Erastus Kibugu, from Onward Resources International. Stanley Musiime wrote on Twitter on this session: “Highly informed perspective by Sheena, the dilemma in funding the missing middle. Lots of new knowledge.” After the lunchbreak we continue with PRE & POST INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT SERVICES.
“African, Smooth and Divine….”
Uganda jazz legend Isaiah Katumwa will perform at the opening night’s gala dinner at the Sheraton Kampala on 18 November.
With a fan-base growing dramatically in Uganda and East Africa, Isaiah is Uganda’s jazz pioneer and a gem whose amazing music converted many into jazz enthusiasts. “African, Smooth and Divine…” – these are the three words that he uses to best describe his music.
He continues to influence the industry for quality, skills, creativity and professionalism in not only jazz but also African music. Along with the traditional folk musical background, he has developed a blend of sound to express his East African identity – smooth jazz influence and spiritual passion.
Please note that the dinner and access to the jazz performance is strictly for Registered Symposium Participants & Special Invitees only!
Symposium Paper: Challenging social enterprise support providers
Challenging social enterprise support providers – From pre-start-up to scalability
We live in a time where grant-based development aid models are changing, businesses owners are under pressure to take responsibility for their social and environmental impact, and investors are realising the potential for socially conscious business models in high-growth Bottom of the Pyramid markets. Day by day we see more emphasis on integrating ‘business’ with social impact….
Finding investment gems
As the final part of an exclusive three part guest post series written for Disrupt Africa reflecting on a year reviewing pitches, David B. McGinty, Team Leader of the Human Development Innovation Fund (HDIF) in Tanzania, looks at how investors find investible businesses in challenging markets.
In 2014, HDIF short-listed 45 out of 1,353 applicants to submit business plans. Of the 45, the HDIF team had met or pre-identified as high potential applicants over 80 per cent of the applicants before concept notes were submitted. Essentially, HDIF’s staff and network were within one degree of separation of great, fundable organizations that matched HDIF’s investment strategy.
Once concept notes are submitted to HDIF an independent, competitive process is applied that serves to remove potential bias. With bias removed, how could the team be so close to good ideas? Alternatively, how do investors (including those that do not use independent processes) find great ideas and entrepreneurs in Africa without talking to every aspiring entrepreneur in the world?
Register now for participation. A ticket gives entrance to all three days of the conference: 18th and 19th November 2015. The symposium is limited to 200 participants so don’t wait too long signing up.