Wennovation Hub Ideas to Business Program for Women Entrepreneurs Comes to a Close

In 2020, Wennovation Hub’s Ideas to Business Pre-Incubation Program was one of the winners of the Afrilabs Capacity Building Program awards.

The program incubated 50 women entrepreneurs in Lagos and Ibadan for four months culminating in a Demo Day event.

In Lagos, 25 female startups were admitted into the program. Startups such as Theraconnect, Fruitables, Bimor Consults, Regxta, Trustinsurance, Agrohusk, Learndeck, Deeva Body, Maselly, Gusta vines, Plantspired and Dronagro.

The program started on Monday, March 29, 2021, to commence series of activities that included private sessions, in-class and online coaching, mentoring and networking.

The 4 month program focused on idea formation, value proposition, business best practices, accessing finances, HR and operations, impact management, design thinking, branding and marketing, Pitching and so on.

These programs consisted of both online and physical sessions. At the same time, while some participants attended most of the programs physically, others joined online.

The Lagos program was managed by Wennovation Hub Program Manager, Habeeb Kolade while the Abuja program was managed by Program Manager, Tochi Precious Friday.

Although the mentoring program lasted beyond June, the Demo Day in Lagos was held on June 30th. The startups pitched their ideas to the audience and a panel of judges.

The judges included Dr Wole Odetayo, cofounder of Wennovation Hub, Deborah Adedoyin of Blacknight VC, Nneka Ukay of ISN Hubs, Gbemi Akande, Managing Partner of Pacer VC, Akpan Abraham of Cocreation Hub, and Dr Anino Emuwa of Avandis Consulting.

Participants of the program who pitched on the Demo Day got quality feedback while a number of them were able to secure meetings with interested audiences.

At the beginning of the program, Wennovation Hub’s Country manager, Israel Raphael shared that Wennovation Hub was excited to have supported the female founders with the skills to move their ventures forward into profitable businesses and employers of labour.

In Abuja, the program also rounded up with 25 women trained. There was a Demo Day event on the 29th of June which had in attendance: Mrs Deputy Director Industrial Development and Investment Dept. of the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment who represented the Director.

The program also had Loveth Imo: COO, WAAW Foundation, Nanko Madu: Senior Program Manager, AfriLabs and Funmilayo Caulrick, Program Manager AfriLabs and Participants also pitched their startups and had judges like: Michael Jidael, Founder: McMikon, Abdulrahman Ahmed, Business Development Manager: Vertmance Resource and got questions, feedback and customers.

It was a great learning experience as we got different feedback from the participants on how they have improved their startups through the Idea to Business Program.