From 2014 to 2019 Oxentia has partnered with the Academy to provide training and mentoring in entrepreneurship and innovation leadership to cohorts of LIF Fellows from Newton Fund countries.

In five years of the LIF programme (LIF1, LIF2, LIF3, LIF4 and LIF5), Oxentia has contributed to the design and delivery of entrepreneurship training and coaching for early-stage entrepreneurs and academic innovators from Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Egypt, South Africa, Turkey, Colombia, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, China, and India.

The focus has been on helping LIF fellows develop new business strategies and improve their business plans and investment pitch presentations. The LIF Fellows also received interactive training on leadership, business plans, intellectual property, marketing, licensing, negotiation, investment pitching, and presentation skills, and worked through practical technology and knowledge transfer case studies that discussed real market challenges and opportunities, to learn how to apply these skills to their own ventures.

Oxentia, working together with the Academy, also provided mentoring support for a six to nine-month period. In addition to mentoring the LIF fellows and reviewing their business plans, Mentors provided high-value input, such as primary and secondary research, financial modelling, and marketing support, enabled through the ‘back-office’ Oxentia consultant team. After the residential training, LIF fellows returned to their respective countries with new insights and contacts, and many have been able to make material step changes in the progress of their businesses or innovation plans over the period of remote mentoring support. In the LIF2 to LIF4 programmes, Oxentia also managed a vibrant in-country events programme to deepen the links for the LIF fellows and their Mentors, and connect them with sources of support within their local ecosystem.

Capacity-building for cohorts of research entrepreneurs from Newton-Fund countries (2014-ongoing)

Client: Royal Academy of Engineering

Project description: Development and delivery of the Leaders in Innovation Fellowships (LIF), a capacity-building programme funded by the Newton Fund to support research entrepreneurs and enable socio-economic growth in developing countries.

Challenge 

Since 2014, Oxentia has partnered with the Royal Academy of Engineering to provide a 12-month training and mentoring programme in entrepreneurship and innovation leadership for cohorts of early-stage entrepreneurs and academic innovators from Newton Fund countries (Brazil, Colombia, Chile, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam).

Approach 

The focus of Oxentia’s delivery is on helping LIF participants cultivate their entrepreneurial skills, develop new business strategies, improve their business plans, and prepare effective investment pitch presentations. Participants also receive training on leadership, business planning, intellectual property, marketing, licensing, negotiation, communication. A key aspect of the programme is its practical, real-life approach: through case studies selected to exemplify market challenges and opportunities, participants learn how to apply newly acquired skills to their own ventures.

Key Oxentia activities on the LIF programme include:

• Cohort profiling and matching individual participants to a suitable mentor;
• Curriculum development;
• Training and mentoring;
• Programme management;
• Communication and community building; and
• Pitching competitions and investors events.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Oxentia has delivered the LIF programme entirely online, leveraging digital learning tools, a proprietary learning management system, and its experience delivering online training and accelerator programmes.

Impact

After the intensive training and mentoring on the LIF programme, participants return to their respective countries with new insights and contacts. Many go on to making step changes in the progress of their businesses and innovation plans. Some of the measures of impact from the sixth year of the programme are:

• Over $3.3 million raised by LIF6 participants in public and private funding;
• 58 new business formed by LIF6 participants;
• 14 new licensing deals signed by LIF6 participants;
• 459 new contacts made and 24 new partnerships formed.