Ribbon & Wicker's Founder and Director Alice had the pleasure of being invited as a guest business mentor at the University of Greenwich during an Entrepreneurs weekend of shortlisted students back in October 2022.
The programme is an annual competition that brings together 50 student entrepreneurs of ethnic minorities. The students work in groups to develop entrepreneurial solutions to real-world problems.
Over the course of 90 minutes, the students rotate to speak with two different mentors who evaluate, redesign and give insightful advice as well as valuable feedback on their business and marketing plans. The aim of the programme is to offer a hands-on learning experience that connects university students with successful entrepreneurs.
The students were tasked with creating a marketing plan to raise awareness and promote the AKO Caine Prize, an African writing literature prize awarded to an English-published African short story writer. Launched in 2000, the prize aims to showcase the diversity and richness of African writing and bring it to a wider international audience.
The focus on the short story reflects the contemporary development of the African story-telling tradition.
The AKO Caine Prize is a registered charity with a mission to promote African writing and connect international readers with African writers through a series of public events and the annual Caine Prize Writers' Workshop. The workshops, held in different African countries each year, help emerging writers in Africa to enter the world of mainstream publishing.
The stories written at Caine Prize workshops are published annually alongside the Prize's shortlisted stories in the annual Caine Prize Anthology by New Internationalist in the UK and publishers in eight African countries.
The prize is named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former Chairman of Booker plc, who was Chairman of the 'Africa 95' arts festival in Europe and Africa in 1995 and for nearly 25 years Chairman of the Booker Prize management committee. After his death, friends and colleagues decided to establish a prize of £10,000 to be awarded annually in his memory.
Our Director Alice added "it was such a rewarding experience to work with these brilliant and enthusiastic students and having the opportunity to contribute to this great project!".
