Mandela fellows return to University of Iowa

University of Iowa’s Dimy Doresca (right) talks to Mabety Soumah (left) of Guinea and Abbevi Elie Abbey of Togo following a business pitch practice session June 22 at the University of Iowa's MBA office in Cedar Rapids. The University of Iowa is hosting 24 young entrepreneurs from 17 sub-Saharan African countries as part of the U.S. Department of State’s Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. This is the sixth year the university has been host to the Fellows. The program was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. The 2021 program was held virtually. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Deliwe Alipo Makata of Malawi laughs as she gives her business pitch presentation during a practice session June 22 at the University of Iowa's MBA office in Cedar Rapids. The University of Iowa is hosting 24 young entrepreneurs from 17 sub-Saharan African countries as part of the U.S. Department of State’s Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. This is the sixth year the university has been host to the Fellows. The program was canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19. The 2021 program was held virtually. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Thulise Mhhlanga of Zimbabwe gives his business pitch presentation during a practice session June 22 at the University of Iowa's MBA office in Cedar Rapid. The University of Iowa is hosting 24 young entrepreneurs from 17 sub-Saharan African countries as part of the U.S. Department of State’s Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. This is the sixth year the university has been host to the Fellows. The program was canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19. The 2021 program was held virtually. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Carmen Maria Pereira of Mozambique gives her business pitch presentation during a practice session June 22 at the University of Iowa's MBA office in Cedar Rapids. Pereira is one of 24 young entrepreneurs from Africa participating in the U.S. Department of State’s Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. This is the sixth year UI has been host to the Fellows. The program was canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19. The 2021 program was held virtually. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Mandela Fellows colleagues listen as Naa Aklerhh Okantey of Ghana gives her business pitch presentation June 22 during a practice session at the University of Iowa's MBA office in Cedar Rapids. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

University of Iowa's Gregg Barcus listens to a business pitch presentation by one of the Mandela Fellows during a practice session at the University of Iowa's MBA office Cedar Rapids on June 22. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Mabety Soumah of Guinea applauds a Mandela Fellows colleague after they gave their business pitch during a practice session June 22 at the University of Iowa's MBA office in Cedar Rapids. The University of Iowa is host to 24 young entrepreneurs from 17 sub-Saharan African countries as part of the U.S. Department of State’s Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

IOWA CITY — Meeting with local dignitaries like Iowa City’s mayor, joining area families for dinner, visiting cultural sites and businesses, and convening for conversations on entrepreneurship touch on the long list of activities lined up for a new crop of Mandela fellows back at the University of Iowa this summer.

The university last was host to fellows as part of the U.S. Department of State’s Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders — a flagship program of the Young African Leadership Initiative — in 2019, before COVID-19 canceled plans in 2020 and moved 2021 programming online.

The revitalized cohort of 24 young entrepreneurs from 17 sub-Saharan African countries arrived on the UI campus June 9 for six weeks of “leadership in business” programming. The UI-based “Leadership in Business Institute” is one of 10 offered this summer at American universities, including Drake University in Des Moines and Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

The Mandela Fellowship’s business leadership institutes are tailored to fellows aspiring to become leaders in the private sector or to start their own business ventures in Africa.

Through coursework, mentoring, networking and other professional and leadership training, the institutes introduce fellows to American business and entrepreneurial tactics and help them develop leadership skills in innovation and technology, business plan development, financial management, business ethics, public-private partnerships, and business intersections with government and society.

UI had to apply through a competitive bidding process to host the fellows, who are staying in residence halls while on campus.

The fellows — young sub-Saharan African leaders with established records promoting innovation and change in their organizations, communities, and countries — are placed with host institutions based on their interests, according to Dimy Doresca, director of UI’s Institute for International Business.

The UI-based Leadership in Business Institute involves entrepreneurial education programs like “Venture School,” offered by UI’s John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center and the international business institute Doresca leads.

Fellows will tour businesses and manufacturing companies in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and Williamsburg. They also will experience regional culture and history through trips to Kalona and the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch.

The goal is to equip fellows with American economic knowledge that they can bring home to their businesses and communities.

“They will be Iowa’s ambassadors to Africa, learning our way of doing things and bringing Iowa values back to their homes,” Doresca said. “The visits will also have an economic-development impact, as the fellows will build connections with Iowans who want to conduct business in Africa.”

UI has been hosting Mandela fellows since the summer of 2016.

Although last year’s virtual UI institute “went well,” Doresca said, it wasn’t the same as in person.

“The fellows that did virtual last year said definitely they would have preferred an in-person experience,” he said.

The two dozen fellows visiting Iowa this summer are among 700 chosen from 49 sub-Saharan African countries to participate in an array of college- and university-based programs. The fellows were chosen from more than 38,000 applicants.

Since its establishment in 2014, the Mandela fellowship has brought to the United States nearly 5,100 business owners ages 25 to 35 from every sub-Saharan African country.

Other American colleges and universities are hosting institutes on “Leadership in Civic Engagement” and “Leadership in Public Management.”

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