American Chamber of Commerce The Gambia Press Release

The Gambia joins the rest of the world in celebrating Global Entrepreneurship Week

The Gambia is joining over 100 countries around the world in celebrating Global Entrepreneurship Week 2010 hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce, Gambia Chapter.

With the goal to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity, Global Entrepreneurship Week will encourage youths to think big and turn their ideas into reality.

From November 15 to 21, 2010, millions of young people around the world will join a growing movement to generate new ideas and seek better ways of doing things. Now in its third year, Global Entrepreneurship Week brings together aspiring and inspiring entrepreneurs, helping them embrace originality, imagination and ingenuity through local, national and global activities.

Co-founded by the Kauffman Foundation and Enterprise UK, a business-led, government-backed campaign in the United Kingdom, it helps develop young people’s knowledge, skills and networks to inspire them to grow sustainable enterprises. In the Gambia, the American Chamber of Commerce, Gambia Chapter is organizing a series of sensitization programmes in celebration of this important week.

The highlight of these programmes include high profile visits by members of the board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce, Gambia Chapter, key stakeholders in the Gambian business sector and the media to the Minister of Trade, Regional Integration Industry and Employment, Minister of Economic Planning, Industry and Development and the US Ambassador to the Gambia to brief these important partners on GEW.

Various Radio programmes highlighting GEW, Gambian entrepreneurship stories, youth employment issues, young people in business, access to capital will also be aired.

According to the President of the American Chamber of Commerce, Gambia Chapter, Mr Abdoulie Touray, “GEW is one week in the year that Entrepreneurship takes centre stage all over the world and this being the Gambia’s first participation in GEW, we will endeavour to spread the word that Entrepreneurship is a key driver in the socio-generation development of the Gambia”. Through this initiative, the next generation of entrepreneurs are inspired and can emerge. In doing so, they will begin to acquire the knowledge, skills and networks needed to grow innovative, sustainable enterprises that have a positive impact on their lives, their families and communities.

For more information, visit www.unleashingideas.org

About the Kauffman Foundation

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private nonpartisan foundation that works to harness the power of entrepreneurship and innovation to grow economies and improve human welfare.

Through its research and other initiatives, the Kauffman Foundation aims to open young people’s eyes to the possibility of entrepreneurship, promote entrepreneurship education, raise awareness of entrepreneurship-friendly policies, and find alternative pathways for the commercialization of new knowledge and technologies.

In addition, the Foundation focuses on initiatives in the Kansas City region to advance student’s maths and science skills, and improve the educational achievement of urban students, including the Ewing Marion Kauffman School, a college preparatory charter school for middle and high school students set to open in 2011.

Founded by late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman, the Foundation is based in Kansas City, Mo. and has approximately $2 billion in assets.

For more information, visit www.kauffman.org.