From southwood@boyden.demon.co.uk Sun Oct 20 16:12:36 2002 Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 18:19:48 +0100 From: Russell SouthwoodReply-To: gkd@phoenix.edc.org To: gkd@phoenix.edc.org Subject: [GKD] Entrepreneurship and ICTs in Africa (CD-ROM) ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ICTS - THE ART OF MAKING THINGS HAPPEN The CD-ROM covers the following: -> What does it mean to be an entrepreneur Successful African ICT entrepreneurs talk about what it means to start up a company, what kind of personal qualities you need and the type of mistakes they made that you can easily avoid. -> Starting with a good idea The CD-ROM looks at the kind of ICT ideas that have fuelled the growth of ICT sector across the continent and highlights a number of recent examples to give you a flavour of what you might come up with. -> Planning a business idea It provides a list of questions that need to be answered for most new ICT business ideas and offers some templates for the structure of your business plan. Whether you're a first-timer or are already running your own business, these questions provide useful ways of thinking about new ideas or planned expansion. -> What skills do I need to make it work? Every ICT business needs a particular combination of people and skills to be successful. This section looks at what skills you need to bring together in your team. -> How do I get finance and at what stage do I need it? It offers the distilled wisdom of a range of individuals from different African finance institutions who explain what they look for in a fledgling business. It also explains when you might need finance, how equity shareholders can help develop your business and what it means to have an exit strategy. -> Strategic alliances and partnerships Few African ICT start-ups have the resources to do everything they want to achieve. To overcome this, this section describes how you might approach making strategic alliances with other companies that will help your company grow. -> Sources of information An information archive that provides everything from where to find ICT information relevant to Africa to local and international sources of finance. It also includes an archive of past issues of Balancing Act's News Update up to issue 114 with a search engine to help you find what you want. As a bonus, it also has the following free software: ACDSee, Adobe Acrobat, Eudora, GetRight, Netscape Navigator 3.04 - 4.5, Paintshop Pro, Shockwave and Flash and Winzip. Most are available in either Windows or Mac versions. If you would like to order a copy, you need to do two things: 1. Please send an e-mail to info@balancingact-africa.com with your name, company or organisation, and a secure postal address. 2. Transfer US$50 (which includes postage and packing) to the following bank account: Account Name: Southwood Consultants Ltd Bank: Nat West 145 Clapham High Street London SW4 7SN UK Account No: 08732663 Bank sort code: 60-05-34 When the US$50 payment has been credited to this account, we will send your copy of the CD-ROM to the address you've sent us. ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: . In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>