How about showing Afghanis how to build businesses that don't depend on opium? Students from Innovation Democracy’s one-year entrepreneurship course at Kabul University have arrived in the bay area seeking to meet and learn from California businesses that “started from zero and are now successful.”
A friend of mine is involved with Innovation Democracy. Please check out the press release and post comments on how you think this could be improved upon or what the future of a program like this might look like.
Two graduates and one current student of Innovation Democracy’s one-year entrepreneurship course at Kabul University arrived in the Bay Area, seeking to meet and learn from California businesses that “started from zero and are now successful.”
Members of a class of 37, Mr. Jamil Ahmadzai, 31, and Mr. Hedayat Arbab, 25 successfully completed the Innovation Democracy entrepreneurship course in which Ms. Malika Jan Mohammad, 25, is currently enrolled. The one-year course requires students to solve business problems subject to peer review, engage in group work, listen to presentations by local entrepreneurs and prepare a business plan. Summer internships are also available to the students. Ms. Wagma Mohmand teaches the classes in Pashto, Dari and English under the supervision of Dr. Sari Stenfors, formerly of Stanford University and Liisa Valikangas, Professor of Innovation at the Helsinki School of Economics. Ms. Wagma Mohmand is present with the visiting students.
Arbab is from a farming family in eastern Afghanistan, where he worked on the family farm until graduating from high school. While attending Kabul University he developed a desire to pursue business but was frustrated by his lack of practical business training. He enrolled in the Innovation Democracy entrepreneurship course that he describes as a “Dream come true.” Following completion of the course he started his own packaging business, packaging dried fruit for sale in the United Arab Emirates. During his stay here he wants to focus on packaging and design, concepts that are unfamiliar to Afghan farmers and merchants. He also wants to establish a mentorship link between American and Afghan businesses.
Ahmadzai is from the central region of Afghanistan, an area with little arable land, best known to Americans as the home of the Taliban destroyed Bamyan Buddhas. He met Arbab, with whom he is now working, in the entrepreneurship course. His primary interest is in observing the American business process, especially the concept of market research, another concept that is foreign to Afghan businesses.
Both Arbab and Ahmadzai plan to share the knowledge gained from their California visit with their classmates. Ahmadzai says, “What I learn here I will tell my classmates. There will be much information to take back.”
As a female, Malika Mohammad is still unique among Afghan business people. She has designed and made handkerchiefs, blankets, scarves and curtains sold on street corners. She wants to expand her business, in part by exporting her goods to Afghan communities around the world. “With my success,” she says, “I can help my family and I can be a good example to many talented women in Afghanistan.”
The students will visit a local Community Supported Agriculture farm in Grass Valley, where they will meet with interns who are planning on establishing their own farm-related businesses; Chaffin Orchards in Oroville, where they will discuss layered land use; SunSmile farms in Grass Valley; attend a class on Strategic Management at San Jose State University; and have meetings with various members of the Stanford University faculty. Visits with other businesses and organizations such as the San Francisco World Trade Council are also scheduled.
The students are available for interviews. They will be returning to Afghanistan on October 1, 2009. Call Sari Stenfors, CEO, at 650--283-2631 or Jaak Treiman, General Counsel, at 818-340-5766.
Innovation Democracy, Inc. is a California-based nonprofit that supports local innovation and entrepreneurship in countries important to world stability.
So is this moving in the right direction or not?