Fifty-five (55) en­tre­pre­neurs be­gan ac­cel­er­at­ed busi­ness train­ing when the Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NED­CO) launched the third co­hort of its Pro­gramme on Mon­day.

The Pro­gramme was launched with the in­ten­tion that en­tre­pre­neur­ship can be an im­por­tant con­trib­u­tor to eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, job cre­ation and pover­ty al­le­vi­a­tion. The pro­gramme aims to in­crease the like­li­hood of suc­cess for start-ups and ear­ly-stage en­tre­pre­neurs, as well as de­vel­op a more in­no­v­a­tive and en­ter­pris­ing breed of en­tre­pre­neurs.

Co­hort 3 has the largest num­ber of par­tic­i­pants to date and the pro­gramme will main­tain its fo­cus on en­tre­pre­neur­ship ed­u­ca­tion, name­ly: con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment in the qual­i­ty of prod­ucts and ser­vices; the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the busi­ness­es; train­ing en­tre­pre­neurs si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly as a co­hort, with the ad­van­tage of the cross fer­til­iza­tion of ideas and shar­ing of ex­pe­ri­ences; the adop­tion of best prac­tices; an in­tense de­vel­op­ment process of lim­it­ed du­ra­tion; and a struc­tured pro­gramme of busi­ness ori­ent­ed ac­tiv­i­ties.

Speak­ing at the launch, Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, Fos­ter Cum­mings said, “The NED­CO Busi­ness Ac­cel­er­a­tor Pro­gramme is geared to­wards equip­ping en­tre­pre­neurs with the ef­fec­tive tools which will al­low them to com­pete in the mar­kets in which they trade, to be able to ac­cess en­tre­pre­neur­ial de­vel­op­ment train­ing and cus­tomised ac­cel­er­a­tor ser­vices. It as­sists the Co­hort Par­tic­i­pants, nom­i­nat­ed by Part­ner Or­ga­ni­za­tions, who are com­mit­ted to de­vel­op­ing their choic­es in com­mer­cial suc­cess.”