Africa was once viewed by some as the ‘Dark Continent’ with a dominant narrative of poverty, wars, and under-development. Over the past decade, a new narrative of growth opportunities, value creation and inclusive development has taken hold, replacing the “heart of darkness” image. While significant challenges remain, stakeholders are moving away from the old model of top-down interventions to embrace a new paradigm of partnership underpinned by the agency of African people. Entrepreneurship is at the heart of this drive to transform challenges into shared opportunities, and launch a new era of growth and prosperity in the continent. In the light of this, the Centre for Enterprise and Innovation at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, invites scholars, practitioners, policy makers and other stakeholders to explore various dimensions of African Entrepreneurship at the 1st international conference on African Entrepreneurship. The conference aims to bring together a broad spectrum of participants with interests across various disciplines and sectors to explore new models of entrepreneurial activities in the continent.
The conference will also feature a colloquium for PhD students on the first day of the conference. The thematic areas include, but are not limited to, the followings:
1. African entrepreneurship: concepts and evolution
2. Digital entrepreneurship and high-tech enterprises
3. Innovation ecosystems for entrepreneurial value creation
4. New models of entrepreneurial financing
5. New approaches to smallholder agriculture and value chains
6. Entrepreneurial and organisational resilience in turbulent environments
7. Open enterprises, communities and co-production
8. Entrepreneurial learning and youth entrepreneurship
9. Gender and diversity issues in African entrepreneurship
10. Social media and digital marketing in African enterprises
11. Business strategies for customer value creation
12. Corporate governance: innovative approaches and practices
13. Entrepreneurship opportunities and poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa
14. Regional perspectives on African entrepreneurship
15. Practitioner case studies: challenges and opportunities for upscaling and internationalisation
See conference programme here.
Registration Details
Registration has now closed.
Dates:
Abstract submission: 16 January to 1 March 2019
Registration opens: 18 February 2019 (check conference website for details and updates)
Full papers submission deadline: 14 May 2019
Abstracts indicating thematic area of submission should be sent to afripreneur@dmu.ac.uk
(word count: 300 words max. in MS Word or PDF). Best conference papers will further be considered for publication in a journal special issue as well as an edited book collection.
Author guidelines can be found here.