Pitching for your business is an important step in getting the right people in your ecosystem. The correct pitch is likely to guarantee an entrepreuer an investor, grant or a loan to spur the growth of the business. A day to the Sankalp forum brought together members from the six CICs to be trained on how to pitch for their businesses. The pitch training was conducted by guest judges Donn Tice, former CEO, d.light, Richard Amato, former President & CEO, Venti Energy, and Mark Sanders, Assistant Director, Clean Energy Incubator. The objective of the pitching exercise was for the CICs to learn how to make a great pitch to investors in a friendly setting.

The respective CIC representatives from the six countires were asked to play the role of their client and pitch to the guest judges for three minutes, followed by a five-minute question and answer session with the judges and another five minutes with the rest of the group.

The aim of the pitching exercise was for the CICs to train their entrepreneurs on how to pitch effectively in the shortest time possible.

The first pitch was done by Maarten Kleijn of Ghana CIC who made a presentation on solar lighting systems. The second pitch was done by KCIC entrepreneurs Daniel Waithaka (Wisdom Innovations) who made a presentation on cook stoves. Takawiri Enterprises was next with a presentation on products made from water hyacinth. South Africa CIC made a presentation on recycling concrete (builders rubbles) waste to recycled aggregate. Tehut Tesfaye from Ethiopia CIC went next with selling their idea on provision of solar products.

Her pitching was rated the best. It was to the point and in under the three minutes allocated to her she was done. She did not have many slides just one a picture of the lady selling the solar kit systems for households. The picture was definitely worth a thousand words and the judges were very impressed. According to the judges, Nadia Zeddou from Morocco CIC had the most unique pitch and was rated the best.

Overall the Judges were impressed and made a unanimous comment that anyone who is pitching needs to capture the attention of the investor within the time allocated. What is the innovation, the challenge, the solution and how much do you need? Who is your target market and what plans do you have for scale up? These are some of the questions that one needs to address when going for a pitch.