Incubator Initiative

The Incubator Initiative promotes economic growth by: supporting shared knowledge bases and experience exchange; offering technical, strategic planning, and evaluation assistance; and creating opportunities for capacity building. Recognising that interventions might be appropriate at different levels given different national objectives and priorities and varying levels of private sector development, the initiative involves activities that are designed as modular components of a global programme. Depending on the activity, infoDev may work with central or local governments, small or large corporations, investment banks, and universities or research centres in developing countries.

Concretely, the initiative was implemented through a phased approach, each phase of which involved a specific Request for Proposals (RFP). As part of Phase 1 - development of the Incubator Support Center (iDISC) - an RFP invited ideas related to the development of a common repository of knowledge and experiences relevant to incubators in the developing world. A panel of experts evaluated all proposals that were submitted; the contract was awarded to a joint proposal submitted by the Brazilian Association of Science Parks and Business Incubators (ANPROTEC) and the International Business Incubators (IBI), based in the United States. Using the iDISC website as a focal point, this phase of the initiative focused on:

• providing access to studies, collections of successful practices, toolkits, and methodologies;
• disseminating knowledge through the website, seminars, and other initiatives; and
• coordinating and delivering training and online advisory services.

In Phase 2, established incubators (working for at least 2 years) were invited to apply for grants aimed at improving their performance, sustainability, outreach, and growth. Eligible groups included non-profit business development service centres, science parks, consortiums, and networks of incubators. Incubators may have different types of needs, including:

• reassessment of the strategy or activity focus of the incubator
• re-organisation or re-engineering of its own activities
• re-definition of incubator's governance structure, partnerships, or operational guidelines
• training and/or capacity building activities
• strengthening of incubator's networking or computing facilities
• restructuring of incubator's funding mechanisms
• creation of new seed funding mechanisms

Phase 3 aimed at assisting start-up incubators and organisations launching new business incubation programmes in countries that cannot draw on adequate private sector development environments. infoDev provides technical assistance and support, such as setting up strategies, assessing the developmental impact and success criteria, and drawing feasibility studies supporting the planning of new ICT Incubators in particularly challenging environments. infoDev provides strategic consulting services and expert intervention via a dedicated incubator hotline, discussion forums, and management exchange programmes.

Through this process, as of January 2009, the Incubator Initiative had supported more than 70 business incubators in over 50 developing countries worldwide with financial and technical assistance, leading to the establishment of 5 regional networks in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East and North Africa, as well as a global network of 130 business incubators in 70 developing countries.

Networking has been a core programme strategy. The initiative facilitates incubators' communication in order to draw on the potential of North-to-South, South-to-North, and South-to-South flows of information. For example, in October 2004 a Global Forum on Business Incubation held in New Delhi, India, brought together more than 300 innovators and entrepreneurs from over 50 countries. The objective was to share lessons among incubators, business experts, and policy makers; the outcome was the creation of a Global Network on Business Incubation for Development to facilitate continued knowledge sharing. A second Global Forum in Hyderabad, India, in November 2006 drew over 400 delegates from
more than 40 countries. Communication-related elements of the call they articulated there include: enhance policymakers' knowledge, understanding, and support for business incubation; build incubator capacity, leadership, and management, and; facilitate regional, national, and global networking of incubators.

Research efforts to understand and assess incubation have also characterised this initiative. One of the first project activities was to generate an overview of the incubators that already exist in several developing countries. In addition, to capture and disseminate the salient elements and lessons learned from the Initiative, infoDev is designing several information collection tools, including a baseline study, which will provide a standard reporting mechanism for the infoDev-supported incubators to gather baseline data for subsequent monitoring and evaluation efforts.

As of April 2010, specific areas of interest on the part of the Incubator Initiative include: sustainable incubation business models; up-scaling of successful incubators; access to appropriate financing for technology entrepreneurs; and incubator models addressing marginalised communities - youth, women, rural communities, small island states, and post-conflict societies. Here are some examples of the latter interest area, marginalised communities, reached by infoDev Incubators:

• In China's Hedong District, which has a high level of laid-off women workers from state factories and government organisations, the Tianjin Women's Business Incubator (TWBI) aims to generate employment for these women through enabling small-scale, low-tech, and service-oriented start-ups. To date, more than 3,000 jobs generated by incubator clients have been filled by formerly unemployed women.
• In Brazil, the Technological Incubator of Popular Cooperatives of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (ITCP) has advised and trained members of close to 80 cooperatives who have created more than 1,200 jobs in marginalised communities.
• In Angola, the National Institute for Employment & Vocational Training (INEFOP) offers assistance for young conflict-affected entrepreneurs to start up their own business.

Technology, Small Business Development.

Used since the 1980s to nurture small firms, "business incubation" is providing qualifying new start-up businesses with a set of facilities - physical space, shared services, business and legal advice, and financial inputs - to facilitate their creation and assist them until they have the capacity to "survive" in the outside competitive environment.

infoDev claims that, despite the large number of studies conducted on business incubation, there is very little information regarding the demand for and impact of incubation in developing countries. They explain that incubators in both developed and developing countries tend to focus on their own activity and exchange very little information about evaluation and developmental impact, as well as on best practices.

infoDev also explains that "[i]nnovation and entrepreneurship are key to job creation and national competitiveness. However often times the obstacles facing technology entrepreneurs seem insurmountable. Common barriers to converting an innovative idea to a viable business venture include limited and costly access to information and communication services, burdensome business regulations, the absence of basic business support services, the lack of advice, mentoring and best practice guidance, limited market knowledge, and lack of access to appropriate financial services."

Launched in 1995, infoDev is a global partnership of international development agencies, managed by the World Bank, working to maximise the impact of ICTs in development efforts. Through pilot projects, support for training and capacity building, and action-oriented toolkits and handbooks, infoDev seeks to help policymakers and donors turn ICT knowledge into action.