The seed idea behind Afriversity started in the late 80’s when my late business partner, John Forster, and I visited Nigeria to help an international shipping company develop its business and IT systems. The hospitality and the warmth of the people in Nigeria impressed both John and me. It was obvious that there was both a will and interest in learning new skills, although the infrastructure at that time was very limited. John and I decided that one day, after building our own successful businesses, we would return to Africa and give something back in one way or another. Sadly, John died of cancer just a few years later at the age of 38, and the ideas were put on hold.
After many years based outside London developing various companies around the world, I moved back with my family to our native Sweden in 2006 to make a change in lifestyle.
Having landed back on home soil, the original idea of giving something back to Africa resurfaced. I was playing with many ideas on how to give something that will have a lasting effect and leverage the enormous resources of the African people and the continent. I was helped by Neil Croft of Authentic Transformation to sharpen the idea and came up with the concept of building a dedicated non-profit Entrepreneurial Training and incubation programme for African businesses.
This is how the Afriversity project was born in 2008. The initiative is rapidly gaining momentum with real help from many generous people, educational institutions, commercial companies and other aware organisations.
Copyright 2011 Afriversity | South Africa Trust no. IT2497/2009 .