The Agribusiness Lab 2

Business Lab: Part 2

Our learning continued with an exercise in business structure organisation. Each group was given a title and allowed to created a business and its operations around that word. For example our group was given the title “JOYBANK” Stemming our previous day’s work in brainstorming and idea generation (CREATE), we thought outside the box and thought of a daycare service which is contrary to a simple monetary institution:

Joybank: Seeking to invest in your child and secure their development? Then enroll your son or daughter in Joybank, Daycare and pre-school services. With an emphasis on critical child development we guarantee you child will have an enjoyable moments as we ensure progress during the first few stages of their lives.

Understanding one’s structure, product, services and operational procedures must always be included from the beginning of one’s concept or start up.

Snippets of the planning and execution of each group’s business venture along with experience sharing from successful entrepreneurs.

The majority of activities today centre on our business ventures. heading to the national Library in the heart of Port of Spain, capital of the country, 5 groups made their best efforts, each with in a 12hr old business. Most resold snack items, two made home goods, another sold drinks while one group, (the group in which tech4agri took part) had the most unique idea of providing feet, hand and back messages both manually and with electronic consumer devices.

Despite much planning and preparations, many groups faced problems such of a lack of  sufficient items for sale and in our group’s case unavailable water for the foot message devices. Nonetheless the project was meant to give those who are not familiar with business operations a real life exposure . See full pictures of the Business ventures and the entire Agribusiness Lab on the Youth In Entrepreneurship Facebook Page.

The rest of day’s  events were concluded with a post evaluation. The facilitators sought to identify: What we learned about ourselves? What we would do differently? and What surprised us about ourselves. Once again one exercise lead to another, as the aim is to identify our strengths and to understand who we are as individuals. Knowing yourself is key to  the entrepreneurship way. Our next post: The Agribusiness Lab 3 will feature this method.

Finally we had a visit from successful entrepreneurs Habanero and Market Movers. Tech4agri has worked with Market Movers on numerous occassions and has featured their work extensively. See a video on their value chain strategy here: Tech4agri Value Chain Report: D Market Movers