NBII competition paves way for innovative entrepreneurs
The Namibia Business Innovation Institute (NBII) announced the winners of its 2015 Business Plan Competition which took place late last month.
The winners of the NBII Business Plan Competition 2015 were: First place – GreenVille Solutions,
second place – SunCycle Electrics Namibia and third place – Education Consultancy.
The competition has been running since 2010 and the primary objective is to encourage aspiring entrepreneurs to thoroughly assess their ideas and outline them in a structured business plan. The competition provides public exposure to the many promising, upcoming entrepreneurs and the prize money serves as seed capital for their new venture.
A total of 18 entrepreneurs have historically been awarded cash prizes, coaching and mentorship.
The competition process provided the participants with a better understanding of their markets, assesses actual viability of these ideas as well as encourages them to realize the business plan or in some cases, modify or abandon the ideas.
The target market for the competition consisted of Namibian citizens and permanent residents with businesses that would be operating in Namibia, businesses in the introductory stage and not operational for more than 12 months and those individuals with innovative and growth oriented business plans.
As part of the initial selection process a total of 16 submissions were received. A panel of internal judges then short-listed nine entrants and another independent panel of external judges selected the winning teams.
These teams had to present a seven-minute pitch during which they were assessed on team and presentation: team composition, entrepreneurial capability, leadership capability, management capability, ability to execute, communication/presentation skills and business: innovativeness, usefulness, viability, growth potential, sustainability, relevance to the Namibian situation and adaptability / replication.
Meanwhile, past competitions have shown that on average two of the three winners take up the challenge to actually start implementation and go on to develop their businesses.
