Internship Opportunity...

LoftyInc Angel Network Internship Opportunity in Nigeria

Overview

As a volunteer intern, you will provide crucial contributions to LoftyInc's social impact investing activities, especially through the newly formed LoftyInc Angel Network (LAN). 

The LoftyInc Angel Network (LAN) is a network of Nigerian angel investors (registration in progress) organized by, but independent of LoftyInc to offer seed and expansion capital to businesses incubated by LoftyInc Allied Partners Limited.

As an intern, you will augment LAN staff and investor members by tackling projects such as sector or regional analysis, case studies, due diligence support and/or investor support.

Responsibilities

The volunteer intern role provides crucial additional capacity to the LAN team.  Responsibilities include one or more of the following, depending on your experience and interests:

• Sector and Regional Analysis:
• Learn about the most attractive emerging investment areas by performing analysis on target investment sectors (such as clean technology, education, mobile technology, mobile payments, or fair trade).
• Perform market, segment, trend and company analysis to identify what's hot in impact capital and in social enterprise in these areas, identify potential deal flow partners and make recommendations. We plan to use this analysis to guide future investment decisions.

• Case Studies:
• Learn how social impact investments are made by studying investments we've made and writing up detailed case studies on how the investment was identified, researched and structured and the potential for exits.  We plan to feature these case studies on our website and in our public relations activities to demonstrate our impact and success.

• Due Diligence Support:
• Learn how investors perform due diligence on prospective investments by preparing pre-meeting investor briefs and recording highlights of investor conversations with social enterprises.  We plan to use this input to help us better assess investment opportunities.
  
  
• Investment Meeting Secretary:

·         Be a proverbial fly on the wall for our member investment meetings where we discuss investments and other top issues.

·         Record meeting minutes and distribute to the team. This is a unique opportunity to form relationships with the industry’s leading impact investors in an otherwise closed-doors meeting.  A great way as well to get to hear how investors evaluate projects in real time.

• LAN MD  Support:
• Work with the MD of the LoftyInc Angel Network to identify potential members of the network, and follow up as required.
• Represent the MD as required.
• Other: We sometimes consider other projects which leverage unique capabilities of our volunteer interns. 

Experience, Education and Training

• The ideal candidate will be highly analytical; detail oriented and possess a strong interest in social enterprise and impact investing.
• Experience in social enterprise, developing countries, public policy and/or investing desired but not required.
• Must be a current student or recent grad living in Nigeria.

Time Commitment

Time commitment is quite flexible.  We would ask for a minimum of 4-6 hours per week or more (depending on your project) for approximately 10 to 12 weeks, though by combining several projects, can also take full-time interns.  We sometimes consider other time periods and time commitments depending on your situation.

Reporting and Compensation

Interns report to the LAN MD and each is mentored, as appropriate, by a LAN member investor.  While this is a volunteer position with no monetary compensation at the moment, we make every effort to assure your experience is valuable.

Next Steps

Send resume and cover e-mail with subject heading- “Attention LoftyInc Angel Network” to solution@loftyincltd.biz on or before September 30, 2011

About LoftyInc

LoftyInc Allied Partners Ltd. is a business development company founded in 2008 to specifically focus on supporting innovative entrepreneurs and businesses. LoftyInc specializes in start-up business and project incubation in West Africa. LoftyInc unique business incubation model is implemented on a platform jointly initiated with the Africa Leadership Forum: the Wennovation Hub. LoftyInc supports over half a dozen domestic start-ups and three early stage projects sponsored by domestic and international clients. www.loftyincltd.biz  www.wennovationhub.com

Plot C, Obasa Road, off Oba Akran Road, Ikeja Lagos

Wennovation Day as MIT-AITI Trains Nigeria's Next Tech Entrepreneurs

Next Generation Afropreneurs?

It was a day full of Wennovation and potential "wennovators", on July 13 at the site of MIT-AITI ongoing training of top notch mobile application programmers on the campus of the University of Ibadan. The program which began in earnest in June, devoted a full day to a compendium of speakers from the LoftyInc operated Wennovation Hub.

LoftyInc's Michael Oluwagbemi & Wole Odetayo 

First, during the morning session LoftyInc Partners- Wole Odetayo and Michael Oluwagbemi, and Hub Operating Director, Ayo Akinrotimi introduced the concept of Wennovation. Through the interactive session, attendants were familiarized with the opportunity of a lifetime which will see at least two teams qualifying into the incubation program at the hub to be known as Wennovation Camp starting in September, 2011. The introductory session which was lively and well received, was followed up with an introduction to the concept of Business Process and Legal Aid by Barrister Kamar Raji a seasoned legal practitioner

Top Notch Consultant, Niyi Sanuth Discusses
 Bureaucratic Survival Strategies

The afternoon session focused first on bureaucracy and strategy of navigating the complex web of government regulations, rules and procurement. Led by the insights provided by business process consultant, Mr. Niyi Sanuth- the session was riveted with relevant questions on how to operate within a large public sector led economy focusing especially on strategies that will be useful to start-ups to survive in this arcane world of rules.

The day's session ended with riveting expose by Michael Oluwagbemi on Apps Monetization and Financing Alternatives for Small Growing Businesses in Nigeria. An afternoon of engaging discussions, questions and hopefully recruitment of the next generation of Wennovators began thereafter.

The exciting part of the day were discussions surrounding some exciting projects that are being developed by MIT-AITI participants, two of which will eventually be admitted into the WennoCamp program. Projects ranging from emergency locator phone app to geo-locators as well as mobile job finders, messaging and social congregation platforms were among interesting projects these young minds are working on at the MIT-AITI lab. Read more about these exciting projects

Barrister Raji Discuss Legal Options for Start-Ups in Nigeria

The MIT-AITI program will come to a close in early August, when winners scheduled to join the WennoCamp program will be chosen at an August 2nd meet at Ibadan.

• Invenio
• TING MOBILE JOB FINDER®
• Compass®
• EasySoft
• NaviGate
• Pluss

LoftyInc & MIT-AITI Collaborate to Float Mobile Apps Start-Ups in Nigeria

Press Release on Wennovation Hub’s Collaboration with MIT-AITI

LoftyInc Allied Partners Limited, the operators of Nigeria’s premier business incubator- The Wennovation Hub- are pleased to announce a new collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Africa Information Technology Initiative (MIT-AITI).

The signing event where the memorandum of understanding (MoU), codifying the relationship between the two entities, was held on Wednesday, June 22nd  2011 at the Wennovation Hub – Plot C, Obasa Road, Ikeja-Lagos. Mr. Soji Awe of MIT represented the MIT-AITI program with Wole Odetayo (Managing Partner) & Ayokunle Akinrotimi (Associate) representing LoftyInc Allied Partners Limited.

Under the terms of the agreement, LoftyInc will provide some facilitators and materials specifically focusing on business incubation for the six-week pioneer training and mobile application technologies’ product development program of MIT-AITI in Nigeria beginning on June 21st through July 29th, 2011. In like manner, LoftyInc will also send representatives to serve on the project panel to award honors to top developers during the MIT-AITI program being held at the University of Ibadan’s (UI) computer science department.  More than thirty students and future entrepreneurs will be in attendance.

MIT-AITI's Soji Awe signs MoU on Wednesday, June 22

LoftyInc's Wole Odetayo Signs MoU at Signing Ceremony

Top market oriented mobile application developers will be selected by LoftyInc from the MIT-AITI program at UI, to graduate onwards into the pilot Wennovation Hub program to be known as WennoCamp. One of the key backers of the program is Google Africa.

The four weeks of WennoCamp incubation program will be held on site at the Wennovation Hub, Lagos; and will be focused exclusively on product refinement and business development. During this period, the student developers will be immersed with a team of their choice, supported by top WennoCamp linked geeks to unobtrusively develop a business around their initial project ideas built during the MIT-AITI program. 

CEO mentors and intensive product trouble shooting sessions are amongst the exciting sessions planned during their four week stint which will come to a close by pitching to potential seed investors organized by LoftyInc.

Successful Wennovators through the WennoCamp will be provided access to:

·        Ultra-Modern office space and complimentary broadband connection with full office support services for  3 months following their successful completion of the incubation program

·  Mentors – both technical and business types experienced in operations and development

·         Funding of up to $25 000 through a pioneer network of small investors being built by LoftyInc

·         Small seed grant (up to $1000 in kind) to register their business and begin marketing

·    The network of LoftyInc consultants in legal, financial and strategic advising that provide reduced fee-for-services to Wennovation linked firms

Speaking yesterday from Houston, Texas, Wennovation Hub Program Director and Serial Afropreneur, Idris Ayodeji Bello said “This collaboration is a small but important step in our journey of establishing a Wennovation Village in Nigeria, which will compete with the likes of Silicon Valley in the US, in terms of the quality of innovation and venture funding to support such. It is also a testament to our belief in the concept of wennovation (collaborative innovation), and we look forward to future collaborations with similarly-aligned organizations in Nigeria, and the Diaspora”.

AITI is a multidisciplinary group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that promotes development in Africa by cultivating young technology entrepreneurs. AITI develops curriculum materials, software technologies, platforms, and networks that enable African undergraduate students to innovate in the area of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Since 2000, AITI has sent nearly 100 MIT instructors to teach over 1200 African students in five countries, resulting in the creation of African businesses and the addition of course offerings at our partner universities. http://aiti.mit.edu/

LoftyInc Allied Partners Ltd. is a business development company founded in 2008 to specifically focus on supporting innovative entrepreneurs and businesses. LoftyInc specializes in start-up business and project incubation in West Africa. LoftyInc unique business incubation model is implemented on a platform jointly initiated with the Africa Leadership Forum: the Wennovation Hub. LoftyInc supports over half a dozen domestic start-ups and three early stage projects sponsored by domestic and international clients. www.loftyincltd.biz  www.wennovationhub.com