“Finding the Sweet Spot between Youth, Innovation, and Agribusiness”
CIMMYT is proud to present Dr Eleni Z Gabre-Madhin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, blueMoon
When: March 23rd at 2 PM Lalibela auditorium,
ABSTRACT
Like elsewhere in Africa, 64% of Ethiopia’s population is below the age of 24. An astounding 20 million people, or nearly the population of Ghana and twice the population of Rwanda, are between 15 and 24, and 20% of these are unemployed. What has come to be known as the youth “bulge” has become an urgent priority for Ethiopia’s economic welfare, but even for Ethiopia’s social welfare. Youth economic participation and youth entrepreneurship are key. Numerous entrepreneurship promotion projects, by government and donors, aim to link large numbers of youth to create micro-enterprises, providing them light-touch business advisory and linking them to low-risk micro-finance credit. However, these programs have a limited focus on fostering youth startups that are relatively high-risk, innovative ideas, that require high innovation and to promote micro-enterprises. However, there is a critical need to also engage with youth as innovators and big-idea thinkers, and for a different kind of support, that is high-touch advisory and high-risk venture capital financing. To fill this gap, blueMoon was recently launched as Ethiopia’s first youth agribusiness incubator. However, it remains to be seen how to design and implement the ideal incubator model for Ethiopian youth, how to get traction and impact, and how to ensure gender-balanced participation, among other issues and challenges. The focus of the presentation will be to discuss whether youth face similar or different challenges in entering agribusiness to their older competitors and the role of business training and incubation in helping young entrepreneurs to innovate. There will also be a discussion on gender and what prevents women from taking up the same opportunities as their male peers.
BIO
Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin is founder and chief executive of blueMoon, Ethiopia’s first youth agribusiness incubator. Prior to this, she founded Eleni LLC, positioned to be the industry leader in designing, building, and supporting the operations of commodity exchange eco-systems in frontier African markets. Dr. Gabre-Madhin is also founder and former CEO of the highly acclaimed Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX), which she founded and managed from 2008 to late 2012, which successfully trades $1.5 billion annually. A globally recognized thought leader on agricultural commodity markets and African development, she has held prior roles at the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, and UNCTAD in Geneva. Eleni Gabre-Madhin has a PhD in applied economics from Stanford University, an MSc in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University, and BA in economics from Cornell University, and was awarded Outstanding Dissertation by the American Agricultural Economics Association in 1999 for her research on Ethiopian grain markets.
Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin was awarded Top 5 Global Women of Development Impact by Devex in 2016, and Africa’s Top Woman Pioneer, Innovator & Entrepreneur of 2015 by the Wharton Business School Africa Club. She was named among 125 Global Women of Impact by Newsweek in April 2013, among 100 Most Influential Africans by New African in 2012, and received the prestigious Yara Prize for Agricultural Transformation in Africa and the African Banker Icon Award, both in 2012. She was named among 50 Women Shaping Africa by The Africa Report in 2011, nominated Outstanding African Businesswoman in 2010, and selected as Ethiopian Person of the Year in 2009. ECX is the first company in Africa to receive the prestigious global CIO100 Award for IT excellence applied to business in 2011 and was named Agricultural Initiative of the Year by Africa Investor in 2011.
Dr. Kristie Drucza| Gender and Social Development Specialist
ILRI Announcements 