The Alibaba Business School in partnership with the Ethiopian Ministry of Innovation and Technology will be hosting the first Alibaba Netpreneur Training program for entrepreneurs and business owners from Ethiopia in March 2020, according to a press statement released on Wednesday.

The Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) last month with Ethiopia for the creation of Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP), which is believed to be a game-changer initiative with the digital economy of the East African country.

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As part of the agreement signed between Ethiopia and Alibaba Group, the applications for the first Alibaba Netpreneur Training program for entrepreneurs and business owners from Ethiopia kicked off on Wednesday, Dec. 18 to stay open until Jan 19, 2020.

The 10-day program to be held at Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou, China, is aimed at ambitious entrepreneurs and business leaders in Ethiopia who are committed to harnessing digital technology to transform local businesses for lasting success.

The program aims to teach attendees to accelerate the digital development of their business and work with related parties to build success cases that will become the building blocks of their local communities and, ultimately, the larger digital economy.

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Speaking to a high-level gathering that deliberated primarily on the private sector and digital economy last week here in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian State Minister of Trade and Industry, Mesganu Arga Moach, hailed the eWTP to have a pivotal role in availing global market opportunities and linkages for Ethiopian Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).

The state minister, who described Ethiopia’s latest electronic world trade platform as the second in Africa after Rwanda, “will enable Ethiopia to provide smart logistics and services, conduct cross-border trades with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises.”

The Alibaba Netpreneur Training program content highlights including, gaining a fundamental understanding of how new technologies and the capabilities of a digitally enabled business environment; experiencing key insights into the evolution of Alibaba’s ecosystem and learn best practices from Alibaba’s founders and business leaders; and hearing about key learnings from traditional businesses within China from a wide range of industries who recently underwent digital transformation.

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It also includes joining field trips to meet leading businesses within Alibaba’s ecosystem to gain first-hand insights into technology innovation; and gaining a foundation of strategic thinking that will enable entrepreneurs to make improvements in their own business and industry.

The eWTP was proposed by Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, in 2016. It aims to set up an open platform for private enterprises and coordination among international organizations, governments, and social groups which focus on the development of SMEs as well as trade. It was included in the communique of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the worl