First TRQN participant in Ethiopia

Each time I travelled to Ethiopia, I had to combine my work with family visit or other professional missions I have in my home country. This time IOM supported me financially. I could then focus and did the work which was planned in collaboration with St Mary University College (SMUC).
 
With several partners from Holland and from Ethiopia we are setting up a new brand to be able to introduce into the European market some Ethiopian products and in a later stage other African products. The brand name was launched in September 2007, it is called “Meleya”, which means “Identity”.
 
To support the marketing aspect we approached mainly 2 Universities, St Mary University College in Addis Ababa and New Business School in Amsterdam. Students from these Universities participate actively in this process. We hope to set up a new standard for African Products. 
 
Next to this initiative, SMUC just launched an Entrepreneurship Centre. The major function of this centre is to train future entrepreneurs. The centre’s slogan will be: "To turn Ideas in to reality".
The main goal of my travel to Addis Ababa was to participate in the strategic planning stage of the centre, to link this centre with existing international entrepreneur centres in order to learn from them.
 
The TRQN project supported me to organise the students visit and group work with the Ethiopian students in Addis Ababa, advice on the strategic planning of the Entrepreneur Centre and to identify partners for SMUC to explore opportunities for cooperation.
 
TRQN can be a good way for many Ethiopian professionals to bring some knowledge and technology transfer.
 
I am very thankful to the SMUC team and the IOM team for their support during all stages of my preparation and my stay.