Global Hope MBA grads impact three nations
Janel Shoun-Smith |
Global Hope MBA program teaches young entrepreneurs how to boost economy, education in their home countries
Thirty-seven students in the Class of 2015 received their MBAs this May and went off into the world to become successful businesspeople. Three of those students, however, have already been successful in starting their own organizations and making a positive impact on the globe even before walking across the Allen Arena stage to receive their graduate degrees.
They are the three students who were accepted into Lipscomb’s Global Hope MBA program, a program announced in 2013 to provide full-tuition scholarships to select international students who pledged to return home and use their MBA to make a difference in their home country.
Thanks to Lipscomb graduates Soa Razafimanjato, Helga Sierra and Kevin Karingithi, four businesses and organizations in Nairobi, Kenya, are now on a better economic footing, 105 disadvantaged children in Honduras received art instruction and the chance to show their work at a local museum and 40 children a year in Madagascar will receive literacy and computer training for free.
These were the four-month capstone projects for the Global Hope MBA students who took their dreams to improve the world and turned them into reality after completing Lipscomb’s MBA course work. Each of them now plans to seek additional funding and the resources to continue their social enterprises as their careers progress.
“We have been tremendously blessed at Lipscomb, over the years through the generosity of so many donors who have shared their own business success by making this university possible,” said Turney Stevens, dean emeritus of the College of Business who established the Global Hope MBA program. “We want to recreate that model in villages and towns all over the globe, hence the name ‘Global Hope’ because we believe this is the real secret of how communities thrive.”
Kevin Karingithi
Project Matumaini (“hope” in Swahili)
When Karingithi (MBA ’15) first heard about Lipscomb’s Global Hope MBA from his pastor in Nairobi, he planned to carry out his idea to establish an arts-and-crafts retail venture, designed to feed off of and enhance tourism in Nairobi.
But after a year of MBA classes at Lipscomb, he decided that a business incubator would be more valuable for his home country. He returned home to carry out his capstone project planning to offer Kenyan entrepreneurs increased visibility, networking opportunities, financial connections and a greater awareness of the Western business approach.
“America was built on small and mid-sized companies,” Karingithi said at his final presentation. “So is Kenya.” Kenya is the third-fastest growing economy in the world according to Bloomberg, he said, but the Kenyan culture does not instill an entrepreneurial ideal within its people.
He set up his incubator in office space at his home congregation. Sponsors in America funded the cost of hiring three business mentors to help carry out the services. He selected four businesses to focus on during his four-month capstone project: a bakery, a cyber café, a dress maker and the kindergarten operated by his church.
Karingithi and his business mentors came up with new ideas for the entrepreneurs to maximize their assets, such as the cyber café offering computer classes, as desktop computer use is waning due to mobile devices. They suggested the dress maker infuse some more modern styles into her product line.
The entrepreneurs increased their business knowledge and exhibited greater confidence after working with the incubator, Karingithi said. A formalized business plan created for the bakery resulted in increased cash flow during the four-month period, he reported.
These achievements were accomplished despite a rise in terrorism during the spring that greatly hampered Karingithi’s ability to carry out his project in Nairobi. During this period, he visited Strathmore University to study its business incubator program.
Currently Karingithi, who received a community resource management undergraduate degree from Kenyatta University in Nairobi, plans to return to Kenya immediately to continue working on the incubator and open more avenues to support, investors and partnerships.
“I want to empower more investment in small and mid-sized enterprises in Kenya,” he said. “I want to encourage them to find investors, not take out loans that they can’t re-pay later.”
Helga Sierra
LUNA International (“moon” in Spanish)
Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, Sierra (MBA ’15) knew she wanted eventually to start her own venture. After being exposed to national social entrepreneurial ventures such as TOMS shoes during her undergraduate studies at Abilene Christian University, she was hoping someday to be able to follow that path and began looking into nonprofit management programs at the master’s level. But after discovering the Global Hope MBA program online, Sierra realized that “someday” could be right now.
Sierra started an online company to sell a calendar of her photos from around the world. Those sales partially funded a nonprofit program to provide art lessons to children in the Los Pinos neighborhood of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Growing up in Tegucigalpa, Sierra had the opportunity to participate in art and sports from a young age, but even then, she could see that so many of the children around her were not given that opportunity.
“Public education is available for all, but it is still difficult for many to finish their education, much less have access to arts and sports lessons,” said Sierra. But those were the activities that she most cherished from her own childhood, so she wants to give Honduran children of the future those same opportunities.
This spring she taught 105 children at 12 art workshops held at Iglesia en Transformación, which also provided free meals at each class through its existing breakfast program.
Halfway through the project, Sierra decided to host an art show of the children’s work, as the level of quality in their works surpassed her expectations. A partnership with the Centro de Arte y Cultura (CAC-UNAH) of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (the National Honduran University) was established and they hosted the show in one of Tegucigalpa's recently restored historic buildings. Ninety students were able to participate and more than 600 people came to view the show during its run.
“They were excited to see their art on the walls,” she said of the art show. “It shows them that they are worthy.”
In her presentation, Sierra noted that art fosters creativity, helps children overcome negative situational contexts and is therapeutic. Her church, plans to follow-up with a few selected students who showed innate artistic talent and help them take more formal art lessons, she said.
During her four-month capstone project, Sierra also established connections with World Vision, by attending one of their board meetings, and with a local television station to promote the art show. She already has a design for a new journal to offer on her website to continue raising money for the art programs.
Soa Razafimanjato
Mizara (“to share” in Malagasy)
After completing her undergraduate college education in America, Razafimanjato (’12, MBA ‘15) returned to her home in Madagascar and found her perspectives had changed. Her work at an after-school program in America convinced her that she wanted to work with children, and the conversations she had with Malagasy children during her visit home inspired her to provide more free-access sites for academic study in Madagascar.
She was one of 26 Malagasy students selected by the nation’s government to attend Lipscomb for a free bachelor’s degree, but most students in Maldagascar don’t have that privilege.
Razafimanjato decided she wanted to create an organization to provide academic resources to underprivileged students and to bridge the ever-widening digital divide in her home country.
That organization, Mizara, is working to establish an academic learning center in a small town in Madagascar, providing free literacy enhancement classes and computer classes for free or at a reduced price.
While English is one of the country’s three national languages, Malagasy students don’t practice speaking English in school. They just learn the vocabulary, Razafimanjato said at her capstone project presentation in April. Computer classes are not generally offered in the schools either.
“These skills are good to teach the children to be doers, not just learners, and to practice problem-solving,” she said. Enhanced literacy and computer skills will make the students more engaged and productive, she said.
During the four months of work on her capstone project, Razafimanjato conducted a survey of 1,800 student in the town to determine the greatest needs and completed a grant application to the U.S. Embassy in Madagascar for funding for the center.
She decided to make the center a digital library providing e-readers and Raspberry Pi computers for use by the students. Raspberry Pi computers are low cost, credit-card sized computers that plug into a computer monitor or TV and use a standard keyboard and mouse. The literacy skills will be taught through supplemental teaching methods such as songs, skits and reading e-books.
Razafimanjato plans to return to Madagascar in June and her goal is to have the Mizara center up and running by September.
“I have learned that people and relationships matter most in making an organization succeed,” said Razafimanjato. “I succeed if I have inspired even one child during this process.”