Three Ethiopian-Americans who wrote award-winning business plans for Ethiopian enterprises were among 14 finalists in a recent African Diaspora Marketplace competition sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development to spur new thinking about creating successful businesses in African countries.
Among the winners: Michael Asamere proposed the use of biotechnology to increase the quality and yield of produce in the plant tissue culture industry; Zelalem Dagne combined precise positioning technologies using satellite GPS and others to promote organized fleet dispatching and monitoring in Ethiopia and Ade Wobe of AMAD metal manufacturing, Plc.
Alula Kebede spoke with Michael Asamere, Zelalem Dagne and other African winners and reports a discussion with Borany Penh, senior political economist at USAID’s Office of Poverty Reduction about the purpose of the marketplace project. (Click on the links on the side to listen to the two parts program).
