SAU TandoJam Agri-Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition

Sind Board of Investment Logo/ Sind Enterprise Development Fund

2017-2019

Impact: 500 Students

The Business Plan Competition has been launched by Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam in Collaboration with Higher Education Commission of Pakistan with the support of Sindh Enterprise Development Fund (SEDF), Sindh Board of Investment (SBI) and Cambridge Advisors Network to develop a conducive environment for the Agri-Sector to facilitate innovation, entrepreneurship and growth of SMEs in this sector.
The aim of the program is to expose students to the knowledge, and skills needed to make a business venture successful particularly in the agri sector. This will inject new ideas into the sector and encourage healthy competition.

Following this, a semester long business plan competition was launched for those students who wished to explore an entrepreneurial career. The interested student teams then participated in a detailed business plan workshops followed by one on one mentoring.

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• The program was developed as 5-month long activity with training, mentoring and coaching for the participants
• The program had thematic areas related to uplifting and modernising agri-sector.
• The first program attracted 500 students for the initial training session of 3 days
•  Out of the first batch 200 students continued with the program and worked on their projects along with their faculty.
• By the end of the program top 10 companies were selected for incubation at the SAU Incubation Centre 
• A major development from the program was that the teams with their faculty have developed vocational training program in the areas of drip farming, tunnel farming, organic farming, organic fertilizers, and similar such programs that can impact the lives of many villages.
• These programs are short programs of three months and are targeted to the School and college kids as well as dropouts.
• These programs if further developed and offered by the universities will create a trained labour force which can greatly enhance the agriculture productivity in the province of Sindh.