THE YES FUND ICT BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION

GENERAL INFORMATION

I. ABOUT THE YES FUND

The YES Fund helps young entrepreneurs in developing countries to create new businesses and expand existing ones. By supporting business plans that show potential for generating income, opening up employment avenues, and improving living standards, the YES Fund aims to ‘create markets and unleash entrepreneurship’ in developing economies all over the world.

What does the YES Fund Offer?

The YES Fund is beneficial for entrepreneurs, companies, and professionals alike.
It offers the following benefits to entrepreneurs:

The YES Fund provides exposure to entrepreneurs by offering a platform where their business plans are made visible to the members of the YES Fund Network. It provides them the opportunity to find investors who can finance their business plans. The investment partners of the YES Fund set aside a specific amount of money to support the best business plans in their area of interest. Moreover, the winners selected by the jury are entitled to prize money that will be disbursed in stages once their business plans are in operation. That’s not all--selected participants are provided feedback and coaching by professional experts!

The YES Fund is beneficial to companies and civil society organizations in the following ways:

It acts as a platform where companies and organizations can share their competence, expertise, and networking resources with entrepreneurs in developing countries, thereby contributing to the economic development of these countries in a definite way. Further, The YES Fund helps organizations involve their employees in the various activities and motivate them. It also helps them to invest in SMEs and develop a strong network, market insight, and possible return on investment.

The YES Fund helps professionals in the following ways:

Being a part of the YES Fund Campaign can be an enriching experience for professionals--it provides them the opportunity to help young entrepreneurs by sharing their business expertise as coaches, screeners, or jury members. The relationship of a professional with young entrepreneurs is a mutually beneficial one. Entrepreneurs benefit from the knowledge and experience of these experts, and the experts get the opportunity to broaden their market insights and obtain a stake in a change-making business.

What Does the YES Fund Business Plan Competition Aim to Do?

Private sector growth is extremely crucial to economic development and poverty reduction in developing nations. Not only does the private sector generate jobs and income, it also facilitates innovation and stimulates transfer of wealth, knowledge, and skills.
The YES Fund aims to unleash the potential of entrepreneurship in youth. The YES Fund Business Plan Competition is an attempt to unleash the potential of the private sector and entrepreneurship in developing countries and to engage the existing private sector in meeting this challenge.

For more details, look at the Rules and Guidelines, Selection Process, the Assessment Criteria, and the Timeline.