Professors Without Borders

20/08/2026

20/08/2026

What if you could test your business pitch, before facing investors for real?

Our 2026 Entrepreneurship Bootcamp runs from 14 to 25 September, and you’ll wrap it all up with our Dragons’ Den, judged by Ford Credit Europe.

You’ll spend that first week focused on just one thing: building your pitch deck. We’ll back you up with sessions and learning on Design Thinking, Finance, and Communications.

Want to take it further? Upload your draft and jump into our qualifiers. From there, the strongest ten pitches go live in front of a panel of FCE executives, with a small cash prize for the winner. ​

Not feeling ready? No worries - every student who uploads a pitch receives individual feedback on their business, and you are welcome to come and celebrate students on the day.

Best part? It’s free, fully online, and open to you if you’re a student aged 18 to 35.

Applications close 31 August.

Ready? Apply at prowibo.org/entrepreneurship_bootcamp or click the link in bio.

15/08/2026

"A business built on agriculture comes down to finding a problem, then finding the solution." That's from one of our students in Kandara, and it's a better summary of the week than anything we could write!

By Friday the four groups had their prototypes. Two vertical farming structures, a rooftop rainwater system modelled in cardboard, cleaning tools cut from used jerry cans, and a batch of avocado smoothies handed round for tasting. All first versions, all built from plastic bottles, sticks and reused wire.

We're so proud of how they got stuck in. Students who barely said a word on day one were up defending their work by the last. One of them described the room to us as young people expressing themselves with confidence alongside real agribusiness skills, which is exactly what we were hoping for.

A local teacher told us the week had given her a new way to see farming, as something uncomplicated enough to build on. That's what small-scale prototyping does. They know now how cheaply an idea can be tested, and what to test it against: can you build it, does anyone want it, can it pay.

Thank you to AfricaHealing_ for having us in Kandara. And a big thank you to our volunteer professor Witness Dlamini, who has earned a well-deserved rest after these past weeks!

12/08/2026

Day three, and the prototypes are coming to life on the grass in Kandara.

A cut-open bottle filled with soil acts as a planter. Tie enough of them into a frame of sticks, stacked in tiers, and the plot grows upwards.

In the drier parts of Kenya, an acre and a half is the smallest farm thought to feed the household working it. The average here is a little under that, and every time land passes down a generation it is divided again. Growing upwards is one of the few ways left to get more out of limited space.

With our volunteer professor @, the students are prototyping with the materials at hand. Cheap, reusable, easy to take apart, so they can build, find the faults, pull it down and put the next version up for testing.

We are halfway through the week with in , and already looking forward to what our students work on next.

10/08/2026

Straight from Eswatini to Kandara, Kenya. Our volunteer professor Witness Dlamini is spending the next five days with Africa Healing Foundation, working on the mindset that turns a farmer into an agripreneur.

It is good to be back with them, in support of their work building resilience in these communities.

Whatever is failing on one plot is failing on plenty of others. A solution that holds up next year, and works on the farm next door, is worth more than one good harvest.

By Thursday, four groups have to present a working prototype. The problems are ones they have farmed around for years. But now they are being asked what could be built from them.

08/08/2026

On our final day in Sidvokodvo, fifty certificates changed hands.

Behind each one is a week of work: Bokashi compost from farm waste, trench beds that hold water through dry spells, pest sprays mixed from garlic, chilli and tomato leaves. Then costing, testing an idea, and writing proposals against real climate funding calls.

The Woman Farmer Foundation joined our first Leadership Lab last year, a ten week online bootcamp for NGO leaders. They wanted the lessons in a bigger room, and this week we opened one with them. Working with their learners has been a real privilege.

We asked the farmers what they were taking home. The sessions on grants turned up again and again. For most of them it was the first proposal they had ever written, and they left with the fundamentals in place: what a grant is, what a funder is looking for, and how to write for it.

Thank you to the for welcoming us, and for the week we shared.

And you have not heard the last of , who has now left Eswatini to travel to our next programme. To be continued in Kenya!

06/08/2026

Everyone has an opinion about your business idea. Your neighbour has one. So does that cousin who tried something similar once and gave up. Most of it arrives before you even ask.

This week at the Woman Farmer Foundation in Eswatini, we brought that to live. One person wore a blindfold. One partner guided them by voice across the floor scattered with chairs. Everyone else shouted directions to throw them off. It was loud, confusing, and great fun to be in the middle of!

Making it hard to hear was the purpose of the exercise. The loudest the voices in the room are not always the wisest, and our young agripreneurs are learning to tell the difference.

They have been shaping sustainable business ideas with our volunteer professor, Witness Dlamini, sorting out which advice deserves a place in their plans and which belongs back in the noise. Just as important, they are learning to sound like themselves. That matters when the person across the table is a funder.

05/08/2026

When the rains come late, the soil gives up its moisture and the crops wither. A harvest that was the main source of income and food comes in short.

To work through problems like this, we're spending this week with 50 young farmers and rural youth in Eswatini, alongside our partner the Woman Farmer Foundation. Through our volunteer professor Witness Dlamini, they've been working out how to get their soil to hold water for longer and how to mix a pest spray with ingredients from your kitchen cupboard.

In other sessions, they take on the business side too: with very little capital, the room for error is small. If you can back only one or two ideas, testing them properly beforehand is what saves you at market.

Solutions built for small budgets, and easy to pass on. With these skills, Eswatini's young farmers are building resilience for themselves and their communities.

04/08/2026

Ask an NGO leader about their board and you usually get one of two answers: a real source of challenge and support, or an obligation.

The difference matters more than it sounds.

When something goes wrong at an NGO, it is often something that good governance and trustee oversight would have caught early.

The good news is that these are skills that can be taught.

This Thursday, Fellows meet Dr. Tosha Cantrell-Bruce, professor of nonprofit management and public administration, who teaches at Northeastern University and the Texas A&M Bush School Center for Nonprofits & Philanthropy, among others.

The session covers:
→ practical frameworks for governance, risk and trustees
→ a live demonstration of relevant tools and materials
→ hands-on work applying them to Fellows' own organisations
→ open discussion and peer exchange

These topics are not nice-to-haves for an NGO. They are the basis on which communities decide to trust you.

Part of our Programme, a year of free capacity building for NGO leaders across Africa, delivered with Stop Hunger Stop Hunger and Northeastern University College of Professional Studies.

03/08/2026

Young women farmers, rural youth and emerging agripreneurs in Manzini, are starting a new four-day programme with us today, building the confidence and business skills to lead in a changing climate.

In partnership with Woman Farmer Foundation, our volunteer professor Witness Dlamini will lead sessions on farm budgeting, business model development and financial literacy, alongside climate-smart practices to strengthen what they grow.