The BIC Africa African Boot Camp for business incubation experts wrapped up successfully in Luanda, Angola on the 21st and 22nd October 2025, gathering 15 business incubation experts from Angola, Comoros, Ethiopia, and Madagascar
Over the course of two days, participants engaged in a practical journey from diagnosis to design, operation, and funding, working on real incubator case studies drawn from diverse contexts – public, private, university, and non-profit. The aim was to enhance the capacity-building into concrete strategies for sustainable business incubation this edition shifted training into execution from learning to doing.
The first day focused on understanding and designing the building blocks of strong incubators. After a warm welcome from Robert Sanders, Team Leader of the BIC Africa Project at EBN, participants formed teams and were introduced to their case studies. Through interactive sessions, they mapped out key client segments, refined value propositions, and explored ecosystem partnerships to enhance collaboration. The day also included defining the service portfolio and program architecture, ensuring that each incubator could clearly articulate its value and tailor its offerings to entrepreneurs’ needs.
The second day focused on the design to implementation, where the participants explored sustainability models, identifying diverse income streams such as fees, equity, sponsorships, and grants. They explored how to build and manage mentor networks, generate leads, and strengthen incubator pipelines. As masterclass on scaling from pilot to growth inspired participants to think beyond early-stage operations, while marketing and monitoring sprints guided them in developing practical KPI dashboards and communication strategies. Finally, the boot camp concluded with three team pitches, where the three groups presented their 90-day action plans developed on a demo business incubator developed based on real cases and received peer as well as expert facilitators feedback.
This hands-on training is vital for incubation experts who are often at the forefront of supporting Africa’s emerging entrepreneurs. By equipping them with actionable tools in strategy design, sustainability planning, and impact measurement, the boot camp enhances their capacity to create thriving innovation environments that contribute to job creation and inclusive economic growth across the continent.
This edition marked a shift from learning to doing translating years of capacity-building programmes carried out by the BIC Africa project into strategic execution tailored to boost incubators’ capacity and impact.
The boot camp was organised by EBN with the support of the Angolan Incubator project, INAPEM and facilitated by experts from the EU|BIC community, Inês Guedes from EurA Innovation Ecosystems and Francisco Aguiar from Startup Leiria.
We extend our sincere gratitude to all participants for their commitment and active contribution. We also thank the expert facilitators, the IFC team, INAPEM and EU Delegation to Angola for their crucial role in ensuring the boot camp’s resounding success.
This boot camp made possible with the financial support of the European Union and implemented by EBN.
