The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Accenture have launched YAS! (Youth for Africa and Sustainable Development Goals), a pan-African entrepreneurship portal-platform with a two-day programme in Lagos.
The Portal-Platform addresses four main pillars of the entrepreneurship ecosystem Information, Mentorship, Funding and Network.
Africas entrepreneurial space is advancing rapidly however, success stories are often isolated and commonly found only on the national or regional level, according to Lamin Momodou Manneh, UNDPs Regional Director.
In North and West Africa, Nigeria and Egypt are taking a lead role while other localities remain marginalized.
YAS! will help to scale these efforts across the region and the entire continent to improve on the individual achievements and make them collective.
YAS! is an initiative of UNDP, developed by its Regional Service Centre for Africa (RSCA) and powered by Accenture that aims to connect entrepreneurs to the resources they need to develop and grow their ideas or businesses.
Users can interact on the platform, leveraging features such as learning, an ecosystem map, and information around opportunities for funding youth development.
The activation, which will take place on the 10th and 11th of December 2018, in Lagos, will be a two-day programme, where entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, corporates and donors will discuss entrepreneurial topics, attend workshops and network.
Day 1 will comprise panel discussions, workshops and a shark tank. On Day 2, there will be a hackathon, where entrepreneurs will learn about emerging technologies such as blockchain, big data