SAP, Acumen collaborate to address shared challenges in emerging markets

SAP in collaboration with Acumen, a non-profit global social venture fund that invests in companies, leaders and ideas to change the way the world tackles poverty—gathered to celebrate the progress of the SAP Social Entrepreneur Fellowship.

 The 100-day program was created to help social entrepreneurs in Africa and India bring their companies to scale and drive faster solutions to poverty by addressing the shared challenges social enterprises face in emerging markets.

“Social enterprises can accelerate innovation, create jobs, and spur economic growth. “That’s especially true in Kenya, which needs to create more 3.9 million jobs by 2020, according to a new  Endeavor Insight Report. The SAP Social Entrepreneur Fellowship gives these CEOs the opportunity to learn from business and technology experts, so they can take their business to the next level while driving sustainable growth in their countries.” ,” said Andrew Waititu, Managing Director at SAP East Africa.

As part of the fellowship, the CEOs, all from Acumen’s portfolio, travelled to Silicon Valley in July to take part in a leadership development program before returning to execute their plans for growth in their respective countries. Their enterprises, which represent a variety of sectors including energy, agriculture and education, take an  innovative approach to addressing the problems of poverty. They have proven business models with the potential to scale and replicate across multiple markets but face a number of challenges, ranging from marketing to talent recruitment, keeping them from becoming sustainable businesses capable of creating lasting social impact. The SAP fellowship was designed to address these challenges and build social enterprises to create jobs and promote economic growth throughout these emerging markets.

“With a 40-person team spread across seven countries, it’s been challenging to actually make swift progress a mobile verification service that helps protect East African consumers from counterfeit medicine and other products. We took the learnings from the fellowship to create a common language and synthesize our ideas. It can be lonely as an entrepreneur when you’re discovering these new growth frontiers, so it’s important to find like-minded people to reinforce our beliefs and trigger collective success. The fellowship was a tremendous platform to bring CEOs like myself together.” said Ashifi Gogo, CEO of  Sproxil.

“The Acumen CEOs who participated in the fellowship together represent a new vision for a future where all people will have choice and opportunity,” said Duncan Onyango, Acumen’s East Africa Director. Over the last 14 years, Acumen has invested in social enterprises that are creating a real, meaningful impact in the lives of the poor. Working together with companies like SAP that share our commitment, we are helping to build a stronger environment for social entrepreneurs to succeed and creating a more inclusive economy in which everyone will benefit.”