Exchange Program Connects Africa and Metro Denver

Par­tic­i­pants at World Den­ver’s Net­work­ing Recep­tion for African Entre­pre­neurs. May 21,2014

Today I am shar­ing some insights and pho­tos from a May 21 net­work­ing recep­tion held at the Pos­ner Cen­ter and orga­nized by World Den­ver, for six emerg­ing entre­pre­neurs from Zam­bia and Zim­bab­we respectively.

The recep­tion brought togeth­er mem­bers of World Den­ver, the host­ing orga­ni­za­tion, ten­ants at the Pos­ner Cen­ter, as well as the pub­lic, to hear direct­ly about the U.S. Depart­ment of State-spon­sored pro­gram.  The pro­gram is intend­ed fur­ther  rela­tions between the U.S. and the African continent

The audi­ence heard from Doug Vil­sack, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Pos­ner Cen­ter, Karen de Bar­tolome, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of World Den­ver, and Dou­glas Jack­son, CEO of Project CURE, as well as from all six entre­pre­neurs from Zam­bia and Zimbabwe.

Africa Agen­da

Ms. Vir­ginia Chitengue Rice from Zam­bia speak­ing dur­ing the event

Both Bar­tolome and Jack­son thanked the U.S gov­ern­ment for spon­sor­ing the exchange pro­gram and said it is a step for­ward in help­ing devel­op the entre­pre­neur­ial skills need­ed in build­ing busi­ness in Africa today. They expressed appre­ci­a­tion to the fam­i­lies who host­ed the vis­i­tors, as well as to the com­pa­nies in Den­ver where the entre­pre­neurs spent time improv­ing their trade.

Accord­ing to Merid­i­an Inter­na­tion­al Cen­ter, an orga­niz­er of the event, ‘The 2014 U.S. Busi­ness and Entre­pre­neur­ship Exchange Pro­gram aims to strength­en the vis­it­ing par­tic­i­pants’ under­stand­ing of Amer­i­can busi­ness prac­tices, entre­pre­neur­ship, cul­ture, and val­ues, while also build­ing their pro­fes­sion­al net­works and project devel­op­ment skills so they are bet­ter able to bring about pos­i­tive change in their home countries’