Located at the MIC-provided facility in abeokuta, ogun State, the Youthnnovation Accelerator expects to educate and train up to twenty-five entrepreneurs within each funding window (each funding window is to run from 6-24 months).
RGF and Hypertech also serve as co-managers of The EDGE Fund which is expected to take equity stake in incubated businesses, and generate above market rate return to private sector and developmental partner investors.
Pathways to Innovation
Youthnnovation Accelerator provides five main services to startups and existing entrepreneurs:-
1) Access to full office support
2) Access to business consultants and professionals
3) Access to mentors (Vocational, Technical and Business mentors)
4) Strategic management Advice
5) Access to funding
Our programs are divided as follows to meet the various needs of startups and entrepreneurs:
Short impact Programs: This caters for entrepreneurs whose need does not include all of the five listed above. They are:
i. Youthnno Consulting-- Bi-weekly first time complimentary consulting and low-cost follow-ups for start-ups at various stages of development.
ii. Youthnno Space-This service help provide business with full office support internet access, stationeries, classrooms, seminar rooms, workstations, boardrooms e.t.c.
iii. Youthnno pad- This is a 4 bed, 3 bedroom apartment just outside Abeokuta, Ogun state. It’s meant for development lockdowns, in-house retreats and temporary accommodation for business teams that have such needs.
Long Impact Programs: This provides all the five services to the entrepreneurs and startups. The programs here include:
i.Youthnno Camp - The pilot phase of the full-blown process is targeted at higher education teams of student entrepreneurs wanting to build marketable products, and float a business to monetize such. The Youthnnovation Cycles will succeed this pilot program, and will expand beyond the higher education demographic.
ii. Youthnno platform - This program provides established early stage technology entrepreneurs with ongoing project pursuit, follow-ups and execution support as well as expansion space and network to grow their business.
iii. Youthnnopreneure-In-Residence: Our one year corporate social responsibility program for entrepreneurs who are challenged and can exchange their skills to add value to us while they get a wavier on the fees that help them build their business at no cost.
The Youthnnovation Process
At the heart of the Youthnnovation model was the need to create an AFFORDABLE and QUICK path to innovative entrepreneurship that maximizes the scale of non-profit techniques, with the efficiency offered by the for-profit approach to entrepreneurship development; while fostering COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIP to achieve these ends.
1.Designed to incubate companies quickly at lower costs.
2.Entrepreneurs (Youthnnovators) are encouraged to share ideas and collaborate with one another.
3.Business plan focuses on market innovation and design innovation
4.Business ideas are either encouraged to flourish, merged or discarded during their early phases of development.
5.Collaboration on the winning ideas is encouraged so that the new businesses are jointly owned by new set of Youthnnovators.
6.Sustainability, marketability and bankable ideas are key criteria in determining the winning ideas
7.Managed funding is adopted to reduce seed investor risk while creating value; reduced-fee-services (sometimes shared) are offered within the network to incubated firms. Stretching the seed!
8.Businesses formed are encouraged to either adopt a generous employee stock benefits program or be employee-owned to reduce overhead costs and provide headroom for early growth