Ross and Goldman Sachs Fight for a Cause
Issue date: 3/10/08 Section: Administration
The William Davidson Institute has announced a new partnership with The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. to bring business education to underserved women in Rwanda. The global banking firm kicked off a new initiative March 5 called 10,000 Women that will provide 10,000 women, predominantly in developing and emerging markets, with a business education. WDI is one of a select group of leading institutions and business schools partnering with Goldman Sachs.
Based on its familiarity with WDI's work to turn the School of Finance and Banking (SFB) in Kigali, Rwanda into a regional center of excellence in business education, Goldman Sachs approached the Institute several months ago to come up with ideas on how to positively impact the lives of women in the central African country. WDI proposed two programs which Goldman Sachs agreed to support.
In the first program, the Institute will design and implement a program to provide scholarships to 15 women from around Rwanda to enroll in the BBA program at the School of Finance and Banking. The scholarship program will focus on underprivileged but qualified women regardless of age. A committee of distinguished Rwandans will select the scholarship recipients. All scholarship recipients will receive counseling and mentoring by the program manager and SFB faculty to ensure academic success. This program comes at an opportune time because the Government of Rwanda has substantially reduced funding for scholarships for the 2008 academic year due to budgetary constraints.
The second program, the Goldman Sachs Entrepreneurship Certificate Program, will give participants the knowledge and skills needed to launch or expand enterprises in Rwanda. Over the course of the six-month program designed and delivered by WDI, 30 women will create actionable business plans. Sessions will be held in the areas of business planning, marketing, finance, accounting and management. Participants will be assigned to one of five sector groups based on their industry. Each industry group will have a faculty consultant who will provide hands-on assistance and consulting as the participants proceed in putting together their business plans. At the end of the program, participants will present their business plans to the group and program faculty.
Based on its familiarity with WDI's work to turn the School of Finance and Banking (SFB) in Kigali, Rwanda into a regional center of excellence in business education, Goldman Sachs approached the Institute several months ago to come up with ideas on how to positively impact the lives of women in the central African country. WDI proposed two programs which Goldman Sachs agreed to support.
In the first program, the Institute will design and implement a program to provide scholarships to 15 women from around Rwanda to enroll in the BBA program at the School of Finance and Banking. The scholarship program will focus on underprivileged but qualified women regardless of age. A committee of distinguished Rwandans will select the scholarship recipients. All scholarship recipients will receive counseling and mentoring by the program manager and SFB faculty to ensure academic success. This program comes at an opportune time because the Government of Rwanda has substantially reduced funding for scholarships for the 2008 academic year due to budgetary constraints.
The second program, the Goldman Sachs Entrepreneurship Certificate Program, will give participants the knowledge and skills needed to launch or expand enterprises in Rwanda. Over the course of the six-month program designed and delivered by WDI, 30 women will create actionable business plans. Sessions will be held in the areas of business planning, marketing, finance, accounting and management. Participants will be assigned to one of five sector groups based on their industry. Each industry group will have a faculty consultant who will provide hands-on assistance and consulting as the participants proceed in putting together their business plans. At the end of the program, participants will present their business plans to the group and program faculty.
Be the first to comment on this story