24 African nationals to attend VIT-UNIDO

VELLORE: Twenty-four nationals from African countries will take part in a three-month Youth Entrepreneurship skill development programme that will begin from January 18 at VIT University. The programme, a first of its kind, is held under a joint initiative between VIT and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). VIT Business School and VIT Technology Business Incubator (VIT-TBI) will jointly organise the training.VIT chancellor G Viswanathan said that the participants will be from the Mano River Union (MRU) countries of Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The project’s objective is to leverage Indian institutional capacity and expose young entrepreneurs to best practices in business. The Youth Entrepreneurship Skills Development Initiative (YESÂ-DI) complements the plan of action of the ongoing multi-stakeholder programme for Productive and Decent Work for Youth in the MRU, he added.While at VIT, the youth will be exposed to some of the latest developments in technology-based entrepreneurship besides interacting with entrepreneurs who have recently established new businesses.VIT-TBI, which has incubated several small enterprises, has already organised a similar program for entrepreneurs from India under a World Bank project. While business environments in different countries always differ, there are similarities between challenges in developing countries. Therefore, VIT will hold the training within the framework of UNIDO’s South-South cooperation programme with UNIDO Centre for South-South Industrial Cooperation (UCSSIC - India) as the focal point for implementing the project.