Developing University Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa

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What is the status of university entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA)? How could they be strengthened so that students, academic staff and relevant stakeholders that are part of the ecosystems can best produce better quality ventures -- i.e. that can employ more people or make venture founders more employable?This book provides a current review of the state of teaching entrepreneurship and its impact on SSA and illuminates different ways universities are strengthening their university entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems. Different approaches in the book fall into four thematic sections namely: 1) the exploitation of digital infrastructure to design and deploy virtual accelerators so as to enhance both scale and reach of entrepreneurship education 2) the use of a social entrepreneurship lens to illuminate how key stakeholders can work together as well as communicate policy changes that need to be incorporated for effective implementation of ecosystems 3) ecosystem developments that focus exploiting sector specific knowledge and expertise and lastly 4) ecosystem design considerations such as factors for effective ecosystem design and curriculum development in SSA.Significant outcomes from the book are highlights of how academic entrepreneurship can be harnessed to overcome challenges facing SSA. The book showcases how digital technologies can be exploited to mainstream entrepreneurship and innovation within and beyond the universities -- thus improving access to quality education and resources to a much broader audience access. In addition, the book demonstrates how to effectively engage all relevant stakeholders in an entrepreneurship ecosystem -- including how to accurately identify all key stakeholders and assess their contextual needs in SSA education settings so as to inform ecosystem development strategies. Finally, the book showcases different approaches to entrepreneurship curriculum developments efforts -- what it takes to develop, pilot, or enhance curriculum in SSA, as well as how provision of more support for students with specific mechanisms can be offered including different ways of including mentoring, coaching or incubation and building academic-industry partnership as a way of supporting students.