Ministry of Communications and Information Technology
9 December 2021
ITIDA, VISA Co-launch Practical Business Skills Platform for Entrepreneurs, Startups



The Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) and VISA have co-launched a bespoke and dedicated Practical Business Skills platform for the Egyptian market, to help owners of micro and small businesses make confident and informed decisions to grow their business.
 
The new platform is based off VISA’s global Practical Business Skills digital platform that delivers free educational resources covering business skills and financial literacy training.
 
This comes within the framework of the partnership between ITIDA and VISA, with the aim to support Egyptian fintech startups and entrepreneurs who are impacted by the current economic crisis, through equipping them with the tools necessary for ensuring business continuity and identifying opportunities for potential growth.
 
The Practical Business Skills platform is one of the key areas of collaboration between ITIDA and VISA. The platform will be available in both English and Arabic and will be launched in four phases over the next few weeks. During each phase, experts from ITIDA and VISA will deliver an online training program where Egyptian entrepreneurs will get to learn directly from experts, discuss and review what they learned and get themselves certified. The program is expected to kick off in mid-December.
 
It is worth noting that in April 2021, VISA and ITIDA co-organized “Calculators for Your Innovation,” the first virtual program for training entrepreneurs on how to use a selection of business calculators that guide businesses through starting, managing and expanding. The program addressed a range of topics, including building and adapting budgets and calculating profit and loss as well as other important business determiners. The training was delivered by the Senior Director for Social Impact at VISA and was attended by 80 entrepreneurs from different governorates.
 
Micro and small businesses make more than 90% of global businesses and are the source of 50% to 60% of global employment. With the COVID-19 pandemic having passed the one-year mark, the micro and small businesses community needs support to continue adapting, as those businesses play a vital role in their communities and the global economy.
 
Practical Business Skills is built on VISA’s global expertise in financial education and offers growth-minded entrepreneurs the tools to help start, manage, and expand a business.
 
With more than 50 online learning modules, the platform addresses the needs at various stages of the business lifecycles, including the “starting a business” stage, offering tools for prospective entrepreneurs to understand and evaluate the steps involved in opening, financing, running and marketing a company; the “managing a business” stage, with information on day-to-day business management activities, including the information templates for financial and cash flows analysis, and resources to promote sales; and the “building and growing” stage, providing tactics on how to drive businesses to a more profitable long-term success.
 
The platform also offers micro and small businesses access to a video library featuring lessons and resources that can easily be download and customized. Such resources include calculators to manage cash flows or do a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) for taking out a loan. The material will be available in Arabic on EgyptInnovate platform, soon.

VISA is committed to providing resources that enable micro and small businesses to grow and bounce back from COVID-19 repercussions. As a company that enables digital payments at nearly 70 million merchant locations around the world, VISA’s priority is to help small businesses thrive at every step.
 
Entrepreneurs can register to attend the training program through this link.

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