V-Lab Welcomes a New Cohort of10 Young Entrepreneurs
September 30, 2020 3:22 am | Posted in Business Profiles | Share now TwitterFacebook
During the next 5-months, the Vanuatu Laboratory (V-Lab) will accompany 10 young and promising entrepreneurs in the establishment and development of their businesses.
Through the support provided by DFAT funded program – ‘Scaling Frontier Innovation,’ the selected entrepreneurs will receive an extensive package of support which includes training, coaching and networking.
A number of them will receive additional support in the form of a voucher to be used with V-Lab’s and Yumi Work service providers.
To implement this project, V-Lab has improved itself over the past challenging months since it started operating almost one year ago and has developed a “model incubation program” which is guided by two key principles:
- A personalized approach to coaching, whereby all the incubees will be assigned two coaches who will accompany them during 5-months. A new coaching process will be applied in order to build bridges between training and coaching, thus ensuring that the incubee receives through individual coaching the support necessary to apply the information he/she has received during the training.
2. A localized approach to coaching and training whereby V-Lab will start training and using local coaches and trainers to provide support to the incubees. To achieve that, experienced coaches and trainers will all work hand in handwith a local counterpart that they will have identified and will develop their capacities so that in the near future they themselves can become lead trainers and coaches.
These 10 businesses cover a wide range of sectors from Vanuatu’s economy, including Hospitality (EricVatoko from Bluebay resort), Housing and Construction (Roy Lui), Digital transformation (Winy Marango),Music industry (James Rory), IT and Telecommunication (Jean-Luc Boas),
Education and Training (Primrose Toro, Velenie Jacob and Leisau Lakeleo),Video production (Slone Marakiterev- Island Sun Pictures) and Handicraft(Sethy Melenamu).
In addition, two social oriented projects will be supported: the VITAL Telemedecine initiative (Torika Kalmanand Basil Leodoro) and Lasini Car Wash(Amando Leingkone).
Already a number of local coaches have been identified: Joe Betsesai from the Moorings hotel, David Joel fromNamba1 security, Rona Garae from Oils of Paradise and Serah Tari from Especially Local.
Please join us in welcoming this new cohort and wishing them all a successful journey in the incubation program!
WINY MARANGO
‘Winy is a 27 year old from Tongoa Island. Her business idea is to provide IT services of the highest standard
to businesses across all industries.
Services will range from fully managed IT services to contractor placing services.”
AMANDO LEINGKONE
“32 year old Amando is from Ambrym Island. He is a video producer, photographer and graphics designer with a Car Wash business. My business aims to not only make profit but provide a safe space for unemployed youths in the community to earn money. A free shell of kava from us every time we wash your car.”
ERIR VATOKO
“I am a 32 year old from Efate and I run a small resort called Blue Bay. It consists of 9 x 2 bedroom bungalows with a restaurant. Using my previous experience in the tourist industry, I was able to set up my business and I am fortunate to be able to have more business development trainings in V-lab.”
JEAN LUC BOAS
“I am 33 year old computer engineer from Malekula Island. From my experience, it was difficult to take up engineering majors in universities outside of Vanuatu because I wasn’t taught the basics here in the country. Due to that my business idea is to establish an engineering training facility
targeting students who are willing to take up electronic, electrical and computer systems engineering courses in the future.”
SLONE MARAKITEREV
“Slone is a 34 year old from Makira Island. His business idea is to develop an online news avenue particularly
using Facebook which everyone has access to. The news distribution will be in a visual form rather than text posting.”
SETHY MELENAMU
“Sethy is a 29 year old from Malekula Island. His business idea is to create strong and durable shopping bags made
out of waste packaging plastic materials. This will help employ the handicraft
mothers who are affected financially because of COVID19 and in turn we are helping to keep Vanuatu clean.”
JAMES RORY
“An innovative 24 year old from Malekula Island with a business idea to create a
platform that will promote and help local musicians in Vanuatu to sell their music. Fans can pay a cheap price to download
local songs using an app. The app will lock songs making it impossible to send to other devices without a payment.”
ROY JOHN LUI
“Hailing from the Island of Lamenu, EPI. Roy is a 39 year old with a business idea to build Eco Friendly
homes and distributing bio digesters for seasonal workers throughout Vanuatu. The homes will be powered
using only sunlight.”
“Dr Basil is a general surgeon Pentecost Island with an interest in child health and paediatric surgery. He is the pioneer of telemedicine in Vanuatu while Torika Kalman is a 27year old enthusiast for social development from Nguna Island. Their business idea is to set up telemedicine service throughout Vanuatu. Connecting rural healthcare workers to specialists remotely to save lives and serve communities.”
