In March 2019, as part of the Antô Business exhibition, the SING held workshops for women in entrepreneurship in Port-Gentil. This 2-day training allowed local women from other cities in Gabon to rediscover their own businesses, to learn about the tools adapted for the development of their businesses or the implementation.
This training mission entrusted to the SING by the Golden Women association follows a simple observation : in cities such as Port-Gentil, few actions are carried out to encourage female entrepreneurship.
What disparities are observed between the business environment in Port-Gentil and that of cities such as Libreville? The entire panel, composed of :
all agreed on the fact that some State administrations are almost non-existent in Port-Gentil, which does not facilitate the administrative procedures of entrepreneurs. Another point raised is access to information, since the isolation of the city is, in their opinion, a barrier to access to information. Finally, they noted a weakness in networking. According to them, the entrepreneurs of Port-Gentil are much more individualistic and less interested in meeting other entrepreneurs, contrary to those in Libreville, for example.
To this question, some respondents answered:
The objectives of our 2-day training mission were as follows:
We chose to conduct Design Thinking Workshops, a set of methods that make it possible to solve an innovation problem or manage an innovation project by applying an approach similar to that of the designer. This method, which takes into account the expectations, habits, as well as the emotions of the user, takes place in 5 steps: empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping and testing. Each step was discussed in depth using concrete examples and proven tools. Participants became familiar with :
Practical exercises were able to clarify several grey areas and dispel some of the confusion that often blocks entrepreneurs. For example, many confuse the notions of need and problem.
On the one hand, these women were able to restructure their various business projects, either individually or as a team on March 7 and 8, 2019. Each has contributed to the projects of the others. Together, they were able to highlight the problems they face on a daily basis. And on the other hand, SING was able to drawn solutions that can be exploited immediately.
More motivated and with clearer objectives, these women with brilliant ideas from all walks of life have shown the importance, but also the efficiency, a contribution of expertise in cities within the country. Unfortunately marginalized as to this kind of initiative, these cities are full of talent ready to be digitally trained, take the reins of entrepreneurship and seize the opportunities.
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