Entrepreneurship Lab Business Idea Incubator

The Student and Alumni Affairs Department (SAAD) is responsible for the in-house incubator known as the Entrepreneurship Lab or ELab. The Botho University Entrepreneurship Lab (Elab) was launched in June 2016 to provide a space where students across the curricular spectrum can come together and share ideas, access resources, and come up with innovative approaches to problem-solving. The Elab is like an in-house incubator that supports students, graduate entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs. Student and graduate entrepreneurs are selected to be a part of the Elab after a rigorous process where their idea or business is vetted by experts from the industry and academia. Those selected become members or Elab Residents. Currently the Entrepreneurship Lab exists only on our Botswana campus. However students from all programmes in all campuses are exposed to entrepreneurial concepts as part of several modules such as Social Entrepreneruship, Entrepreneurship and Innovation etc that are part of their program of study. The aim is to expand the Entrepreneurship Lab to our Lesotho campus in the next phase and eventually to all campuses.

The primary objectives of the “ELab” are to be:

Be a mechanism to support the development of BGP traits amongst BU students and graduates
Promote Student Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Enhance the culture of risk-taking
Provide ecosystems that promote the ability to think creatively
Support the development of local enterprises

The Elab currently operates from the Botho University, Gaborone Campus in Botswana.

The ELab was established with the following in mind:

To encourage students and graduates to develop ideas into innovative solutions that can in the short or long run be turned into entrepreneurial ventures. This resulted from a growing demand from the community of student-entrepreneurs to create a space to collaborate and turn their bursts of genius into something tangible. The Elab is an initiative meant to assist the Botho University students and graduates to identify practical applications to current issues, problems, and needs.
To identify, mentor, incubate, connect and support outstanding student/graduate-entrepreneurs and facilitate their success beyond Botho University, into the community

The Elab offers the following major activities to selected student and graduate entrepreneurs:

Dedicated one to one Mentorship by relevant industry experts
Seed Funding
Expert Coaching/Training/Workshops
Entrepreneur Competency Analysis & Development Intervention
Business working space with WiFI, Computers, Meetings rooms, Printing Services etc
Secretarial Services
Professional Networking opportunities

Entrepreneurship Lab at Botho University is proud to announce the Dunin Deshpande Queens University Innovation Centre (DDQUIC) to be our official training partner.

As per their official website, “their mission is to develop entrepreneurial mindsets and foster a culture of innovation globally. They build changemakers by encouraging and supporting their entrepreneurial initiatives through incubators, workshops, programs, courses, and pitch competitions.”

Objective 1: The establishment of the Botho University Chapter of DDQIC’s online https://www.queensu.ca/innovationcentre/entrepreneurship training for African youth

The pilot phase will consist of a program at Botho University in Gaborone, Botswana through their inhouse incubator known as the Entrepreneurship Lab, based on DDQIC’s existing Explore Entrepreneurship online entrepreneurship training materials, which include the program Playbook, readings, downloadable video content, exercises, and supplementary resources (the “Courses”). Participants who complete the Courses have an opportunity to earn the Explore Entrepreneurship micro-credential from Queen’s University.

The next phase will be the large-scale launch and will involve delivery of training to a significantly larger number of members. The details of the Large-Scale Launch will be negotiated in good faith between the Parties, and may include:

funding student bursaries,
delivery of additional existing DDQIC content not included in the initial Courses,
enhancements to the Courses (if indicated by the Pilot results and acceptable to the responsible Party),
expanding the programming to entrepreneurs across Botho University campuses in Lesotho,
Eswatini, and Ghana and also to entrepreneurs at any of our interested partners,

Objective 2: The exchange of knowledge, program Playbooks, and expertise so Botho University and DDQIC can enhance innovation programming and initiatives

DDQIC will provide the Playbook and consultation with the goal of transmitting expertise that was acquired throughout Queen’s University’s transformation as an entrepreneurial university. Both Parties will attend cross-collaboration meetings, virtually and in-person, to share best practices and know-how that will strengthen both parties’ capacity to deliver impactful initiatives for Botswana youth. Outcomes will be discussed by both parties and could include increasing the parties’ social and community impact through entrepreneurship, increasing the parties’ impact on priority sectors in need of innovation, and increasing the number of programs and networks available to support new enterprise creation and scaling.