As the world adapts to social distancing measures to limit the spread of COVID-19, businesses and entrepreneurs have made crucial changes to ensure long-term sustainability. The latest event hosted by the LIFE Project with the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), highlighted the challenges and opportunities that small business owners and entrepreneurs experience in times of crisis.
The COVID-19 crisis has hit the food sector particularly hard, upending traditional business models and disrupting supply chains. The challenges facing these businesses have far-reaching implications – not only for the enterprises themselves, but also for the people they supply with food during the pandemic-induced lockdown. Fortunately, many of these businesses are responding to these disruptions with creativity and innovation, enabling them to continue delivering food, maintaining supply chains, supporting workers’ livelihoods – and helping to feed society during these unprecedented times.
In July, WDI’s Amy Gillett, vice president of Education, and Kristin Babbie Kelterborn, senior project manager, along with Eric Fretz, a WDI faculty affiliate and professor at the University of Michigan, traveled to Istanbul and Mersin to lead workshops on entrepreneurship curriculum development, participate in a business pitch competition for Mersin’s second cohort of entrepreneurs and interview program graduates.
From Consortium Partner The William Davidson Institute (WDI) at the University of Michigan
Pitch competitions can be an invaluable component of entrepreneurship development programs. Preparing for a final pitch competition can keep participants motivated throughout the program as they work towards presenting their businesses to an engaged audience. While pitch competitions offer a clear benefit to winners — such as cash prizes, investments and consultancy services — benefits also accrue to those not selected for an award.
From Consortium Partner The William Davidson Institute (WDI) at the University of Michigan
In Istanbul, Mohamad Bakkar, a Syrian refugee and now food entrepreneur, (pictured right) produces his own special Syrian cheeses and yogurt. About three and a half years ago, Bakkar fled the civil war in Syria, where he was an electrical engineer. As a refugee in a new place, life was not easy. To improve his family’s situation, Bakkar opened his own food business in Istanbul.
From Consortium Partner The William Davidson Institute (WDI) at the University of Michigan
Two WDI representatives traveled to Turkey earlier this month as part of the Institute’s work on a project, led by the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), that aims to develop sustainable livelihoods in the food sector for Syrian refugees and their host communities.
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