Global Business Labs
This week i had the privilege of visiting the Global Business Labs office at Makerere University.
The trip came after months of talks via email but no progress.
I guess my interest in this group stems from my general interest in the 'Innovation'
boom that is taking the Information Technology world by storm.
I had a few questions many of which were answered by the email that the group sent me.
What i will present here are some of the basics as i see them.
There are two major groups with which i have interacted (albeit from a distance).
Demo-Africa and Pivot East. Both host events in Africa which are designed to
tap into the vast pools of knowledge in Uganda's youth. The former had an event which it
held in Kampala with one of our more notable innovation labs-HiveColab (http://www.hivecolab.org). The event has the backing of the
U.S government and the then Secretary of State-Hillary Rodham Clinton (http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/clinton-hillary-rodham). The event organized by Pivot East (http://www.pivoteast.com) was
put together by a group from Kenya (http://www.moseskemibaro.com/) and hosted by another lab-OutboxHub (http://www.outbox.co.ug)
The aforementioned groups are both predominantly based abroad and are indirectly initiatives of their respective governments.
Groups that host them were formed often indirectly after interaction with foreign organization.
In this case therefore, the Global Business Labs also fall under the same category. The difference is in the scope of their
work. In a previous blog, i spoke about Incubation but what i probably was trying to find is the idea of acceleration.
This is what Global Business Labs does.
They are established primarily to help accelerate already existing businesses.
Maybe their European approach to business development will prove valuable.
GBL has the advantage of being well placed-right at the campus so that they can get access to students
as well as take advantage of the University Infrastructure.
My only fear was that their brand would be swallowed by the larger more porminent MUK brand.
They are offering an eight month program to develop businesses.
A word for word description of what they do is given below:
The requirements for the application are based on:
- Scalability of business idea: the business should be able to grow
fast with limited fixed costs and low variable costs.
- The team: we are mainly targeting business students or business
alumni. We are looking for passionate teams of at least two people
where at least one person is a business student or business alumni.
The team is expected to engage full-time during the lab period.
- Proof of concept: lab companies should be beyond the idea phase and
we expect the companies to show proof of concept in terms of customers
that are representing a larger market. Preferably, the company should
already be selling their product/service or be ready to sell within 3
months after entering the lab.
The trip came after months of talks via email but no progress.
I guess my interest in this group stems from my general interest in the 'Innovation'
boom that is taking the Information Technology world by storm.
I had a few questions many of which were answered by the email that the group sent me.
What i will present here are some of the basics as i see them.
There are two major groups with which i have interacted (albeit from a distance).
Demo-Africa and Pivot East. Both host events in Africa which are designed to
tap into the vast pools of knowledge in Uganda's youth. The former had an event which it
held in Kampala with one of our more notable innovation labs-HiveColab (http://www.hivecolab.org). The event has the backing of the
U.S government and the then Secretary of State-Hillary Rodham Clinton (http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/clinton-hillary-rodham). The event organized by Pivot East (http://www.pivoteast.com) was
put together by a group from Kenya (http://www.moseskemibaro.com/) and hosted by another lab-OutboxHub (http://www.outbox.co.ug)
The aforementioned groups are both predominantly based abroad and are indirectly initiatives of their respective governments.
Groups that host them were formed often indirectly after interaction with foreign organization.
In this case therefore, the Global Business Labs also fall under the same category. The difference is in the scope of their
work. In a previous blog, i spoke about Incubation but what i probably was trying to find is the idea of acceleration.
This is what Global Business Labs does.
They are established primarily to help accelerate already existing businesses.
Maybe their European approach to business development will prove valuable.
GBL has the advantage of being well placed-right at the campus so that they can get access to students
as well as take advantage of the University Infrastructure.
My only fear was that their brand would be swallowed by the larger more porminent MUK brand.
They are offering an eight month program to develop businesses.
A word for word description of what they do is given below:
The requirements for the application are based on:
- Scalability of business idea: the business should be able to grow
fast with limited fixed costs and low variable costs.
- The team: we are mainly targeting business students or business
alumni. We are looking for passionate teams of at least two people
where at least one person is a business student or business alumni.
The team is expected to engage full-time during the lab period.
- Proof of concept: lab companies should be beyond the idea phase and
we expect the companies to show proof of concept in terms of customers
that are representing a larger market. Preferably, the company should
already be selling their product/service or be ready to sell within 3
months after entering the lab.
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