KDI School Business Start-up Program,
take your idea to the next level

“As the world continues to shrink and borders disappear, many new opportunities to create value arise for those who have entrepreneurial spirit and the skill set to take an idea to the next level.” Those are the words of Mr. Todd Sample (2007 MFDI), a graduate of KDI School who led the Business Start-up Program at KDI School. For six months, KDI School team up with Sejong City Create Economy Innovation Center to provide KDI students with the opportunity to gain insight into how to create a successful start-up business in Session I and a chance to execute their business plan in continuing sessions.

All KDI students were cordially invited to take part and add a unique face to their KDI School experience. Students from more than 15 countries had the chance to attend such unique and valuable event. The Globe had the chance to catch up with Mr. Edward William Osei-Bonsu BRUCE-LYLE (2016 MPP), who provides readers with his unique experience in the start-up program.

Born June 24^th, 1986, Edward is graduate student of the University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, and a Planning Analyst with the National Development Planning Commission of Ghana. He joined KDI school in August 2016 under KOICA’s Global Leadership in Economic Policy scholarship program.

As a Planning Analyst with the National Development Planning Commission, his area of work is in development policy for enhancing the competitiveness of Ghana’s private sector. This therefore means he gets to interact with relevant private sector stakeholders such as the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, National Board of Small Scale Industries, Ghana Export Promotion Authority, Ghana Standards Authority amongst others who are contributing their efforts towards the realization of the sectors objectives.

Edward was motivated to join KDI School’s business start-up program because he saw it as an opportunity to further shape his business idea of providing a private model community center that offers social and study spaces for people of all ages and cultures; provides help and advice with finding internship opportunities and supports small business owners to modernize their business offerings and improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through mystery chopper concept.

The above preconceived motivation for joining the start-up program meant Edward was looking forward to acquiring new knowledge on how best to pitch his ideas to raise the needed funds either through crowd funding or a good marketing strategy using both traditional and online means.

Enrolling on the KDI School business start-program was therefore timely as it gave Edward an opportunity to know what to look out for when trying to start a business, even in foreign markets where there are chances of experiencing a culture shock. Indeed, Edward learnt that, certain weaknesses that may be established during a SWOT analysis of a market can be great opportunities for successful start-up business. Although he admits he missed some key sessions, he found the program to be very useful and could help many students with great business ideas become entrepreneurs in their home countries or foreign countries like Korea.

The knowledge acquired during the program will help Edward better shape his idea to draw-up a much more comprehensive business plan. Although his current field of study is in public policy, Edward is concentrating on Trade and Industrial policy and therefore understanding the complexities when it comes to what you need to know before starting a business and how to even find new markets will be an added knowledge to help him become a better policy analyst in the Trade and Industrial sector.

Based on the knowledge and experience gained during the program, Edward hopes the KDI business start program will be sustained for the benefit of student community in KDI. He highly recommends it has been very useful.

By Lucia Nathali Salazar MEDINA [2016 MPP, Guatemala]