PIC: Some of the participants and their mentors University of Malawi, The Polytechnic has enrolled the first cohort of the youth within Blantyre who applied to be trained and mentored at the Polytechnic Business Incubation Centre (BIC).
The training is being sponsored by the Malawi Government through the Ministry of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development with the funding from the African Development Bank.
The youth between the ages of 18-35 who are able to pitch viable business ideas with respect to innovation, technology, business linkages, are the ones who have been enrolled at the Business Incubation Centre regardless of their educational background.
According to the Dean of the Faculty of Education and Media Studies, Dr Mary Kamwaza, the main functions of the BIC is to provide infrastructure, business development services like trainings, foster business connectivity, assist them to formulate and monitor viable business plans plus supervise the performance of the graduate incubates owned business.
“The training will run for 5 to 6 months based on the area of expertise one is being mentored on,” she said.
The youth were selected after submitting application forms to the Ministry of labour where by the evaluation committee assessed the submission in line with the evaluation guidelines and tools,
One of the participants, Chikumbutso Malinga expressed his gratitude to the Malawi Government and The Polytechnic for the opportunity. He further said that he intends to utilize this opportunity to pitch and scale up his innovative idea for free.
“This training will open doors for me, for I will be able to expand my business and be able to employ other youth in this era of unemployment challenges,” he said.
Participants will be mentored by experts and professionals in the various fields.