It’s interesting. I’ve worked in and around the enterprise agenda for many years, working in so many different contexts – education, politics, institutions, businesses – and although I have experienced entrepreneurship in every situation, it continues to frustrate me that ‘being enterprising’ is so frequently undervalued in every context other than business. In fact, in
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ICE is passionate about sharing learning with the banking sector in the UK and internationally which has been drawn from extensive research commissioned by FSD Kenya. Research has sought to understand more fully the nature and needs of dynamic growth companies, as well as their barriers to accessing finance to enable growth. As featured author this Summer on FSD Kenya’s website, I am therefore seizing my opportunity to do so!
UNWomen have developed a unique partnership with the Beijing Roller Derby, supporting a fast-growing sport which is becoming strongly aligned with gender equality and the empowerment of women
I have often found that service sector institutions can be much too fixated on supporting an ‘enterprise’, rather than the person running it, and moreover that even their focus on the business entity can be limited to the area most obviously related to their service, rather than encompassing the needs of the business overall. This linear approach to delivering business support services demonstrates, in my mind, a lack of empathy with the real dynamics of any small or medium enterprise, and represents a huge lost opportunity for both parties – and the macro-economy.
I was privileged to participate in an ‘SME Day’ which brought together leading economists and entrepreneurs in Nairobi in December 2015, on a quest to improve understanding of SME finance. Whilst SME loans represent almost a quarter of total loans in Kenya, innovation in the sector has been slow, a status quo that is difficult to change due to a lack of data across the board.
Flourishing social enterprise Weave is the product of nothing more than an early hunch. Its originator Jane Shaw believed that if skilled makers across the North East region who have the technical know-how and skills to create quality textiles, garments and hand-crafted products were connected to equally gifted people in the field of design, then highly sought-after merchandise and samples could potentially be created locally, and sold globally, as a real alternative to the default position of sourcing from Asia. She was right.
The Durham Symposium on Small Business & Enterprise Development took place in September of last year, yielding a diverse and abundant assemblage of perspectives on enterprise and entrepreneurship. A detailed narrative of the discussions that took place at the Symposium is now being prepared for publication. So in advance of this I am really eager to ensure that as many new perspectives are added to the debate, from the entrepreneurs, policy makers, enterprise educators and business support professionals who were not able to attend the Symposium itself but that have a viewpoint that they may wish to share. For your interest, and in the hope of stimulating further discussion, I have embedded below four videos taken at the Durham Symposium itself.
A few years ago I was introduced to the new leader of a long-standing Charity in Benwell which is in the West End of Newcastle, a place that has been consistently featured on national league tables for high rates of deprivation and poverty, unemployment, social exclusion and poor health for many years. The CEO, Sarah
The Durham Symposium on Small Business & Enterprise Development will now take place in Durham City, at St Aidan’s College and Durham Castle, on 15th and 16th September 2015.
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