The fifth edition of the BIC Africa Acceleration Programme for Women Entrepreneurs will support 30 women entrepreneurs in total, including 20 from the country projects Angola, Comoros, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Somalia and 10 others from other Sub-Saharan African countries willing to scale their businesses, while contributing to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Applications are ongoing for this programme.
About BIC Africa Acceleration Programme
Opportunity Details
The programme will run from April to July 2025, and it will focus on established post-revenue women entrepreneurs with a registered business and an operational team, across all sectors and business types through a combination of online training modules, group coaching sessions, individual exercises, and networking sessions with women experts from Africa and Europe with relevant experience in supporting innovative entrepreneurs and start-ups. One-on-one mentoring sessions will be offered to a limited number of participants (please see below).
About the Acceleration Programme
They are looking for established women entrepreneurs who are willing to explore growing (and potentially internationalising) their business with the support of the BIC Africa Acceleration Programme.
Thirty selected women entrepreneurs will benefit from a full online training course (6 modules); will participate in dedicated group coaching sessions (4 sessions) to deepen some of the topics addressed during the training; will participate in 2 networking sessions; will be introduced to the alumnae network of BIC Africa Women Acceleration programme and gain access to other networking and market linkage opportunities and events.
The core programme will include:
- 6 online interactive training modules (each lasting 1.5 hours), on topics such as Mission; Unique Value Proposition and Product Development; Business Model; Team & Partnerships; Finance; Marketing.
- 4 online group coaching sessions (each lasting 1.5 hours), on topics such as Leadership and influencing skills; Mastering personal and business finances; Storytelling and pitch training; Time management and prioritisation.
- 2 Networking sessions (at the beginning and at the end of the programme)
- Access to support documents and recordings of the sessions
- Integration in the BIC Africa Community of women entrepreneurs, with visibility on the BIC Africa website, integration into the LinkedIn group for this Community, as well as access to other networking and market linkage opportunities and events.
Why join the BIC Africa Acceleration Programme?
The BIC Africa Acceleration Programme is aimed at helping the 30 participants:
- Explore growth and scaling trajectories for their businesses and solutions.
- Assess the team competencies and consider how their business model will adapt to the growth phase.
- Articulate the social value proposition, identifying why and how the proposed solution contributes to SDGs.
- Gain access to appropriate sectorial, local, and international experts.
- Join a vibrant community of women entrepreneurs, to learn, exchange and connect.
- Connect with BIC Africa and the European Business Innovation Centre Network (EBN) to unleash the impact of women entrepreneurs (see: https://ebn.eu/).
Benefits of BIC Africa Acceleration Programme
The programme will open the door for further opportunities and awards:
- A Certificate of recognition will be sent in an electronic format by EBN – BIC Africa project for those who successfully completed the 12-week course acceleration programme (attending at least 9 out of the 12 sessions).
- Remote one-to-one Mentoring sessions will be offered to high performing participants selected by the BIC Africa expert committee, who as such will get the chance to be matched with one or two European incubation experts, who will accompany their growth trajectory. Further details will be shared at the start of the programme.
- Other Business Awards (e.g. additional support, highlighted visibility on BIC Africa website, invitation to participate in a BIC Africa event etc.) will be available to high performing participants selected by the BIC Africa expert committee.
BIC Africa Acceleration Programme Requirements
The preferred candidate should:
- Be a woman (minimum age of 18-years-old) founder/owner of already established business with an operational team and a strong development potential.
- Be available between April and July 2025 to participate in the Programme with maximum 2 hours per week for online sessions + time to work individually and reflect upon the learnings.
- Already running a start-up or company (it must be registered since at least 1 year) and seeking to scale up.
- Demonstrate commitment to actively participate in all the activities of the Acceleration Programme and assisting future developments of the programme.
- Have access to reliable internet connection.
- Have a good working knowledge of English language.
Eligibility criteria
In order to be eligible to apply and participate, applicants must meet the following criteria:
- The applicant must be a woman founder/ CEO of a company (minimum age of 18-years-old).
Note: The programme participation cannot be authorized for another team member, the owner or CEO should participate to ensure the knowledge and experience is supporting the company in the long-term.
- The business must be already in existence (and registered) for more than 1 year and must have an operational team.
- Based in Sub-Saharan Africa (Angola, Comoros, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Somalia being the main target countries with overall 20 seats available in the acceleration batch, out of 30)
- Have a good working knowledge of English language (proved by the use of English in the application).
Application Date and Process
To apply, you must have a google account and must complete the following google application form: https://forms.gle/maVWT94916p9LnnZ9
which consists of 3 components.
You should:
- Fill in the questions in the form on general information on the applicant and the business.
- Prepare and Upload a Pitch Deck
Important: For this, please download the PowerPoint Presentation template that we provide here: https://shorturl.at/CEHEK, use it for the creation of your pitch deck and please follow the instructions indicated in the template!
(Maximum file size: 10 MB; Maximum no. of slides: 20, can be uploaded in the google application form either in pdf or as PPT format)
The template outlines the required structure and information to be provided for each section, addressing the following aspects of your business:
- Business and business model
- Motivation and Expectations
- Upload your CV
Please upload it in the google application form in pdf / word format, with max size of 10 MB.
Only those applicants who have completed all the 3 components will be considered for selection.
Application Evaluation and Selection
All applications submitted before the deadline will pass an eligibility check (see eligibility criteria above) and completeness of the application form. Proposals passing these checks will be assessed through a transparent evaluation process that will be managed by EBN.
Communication between the BIC Africa team and applicants during the application assessment process will be carried out primarily via email. It is therefore recommended that applicants notify BIC Africa if they change the email address, they apply with during the application process.
Assessment Criteria
Once the eligibility check is performed, the BIC Africa committee will review and evaluate the nominations using the following criteria and scoring:
- Business description and business model > This criterion will assess the business overall, the entrepreneurial profile / team and how the company’s offer responds to market needs (10 points)
- Innovation dimension > This criterion assesses the innovative aspects of the product or service (10 points)
- Scalability > This criterion assesses the scalability of the product or service, and the feasibility of the company to achieve significant growth (10 points)
- Impact > This criterion assesses how the solution is going to generate social and environmental impact, and preferably meet the UN SDGs (10 points)
- Motivation > This criterion assesses the motivation expressed by the applicant in the pitch deck. (10 points)
50/50 is the max scoring. The minimum threshold for accessing the programme is 30/50
Application Deadline
20 March, 2025
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