
Insights from the Digital Diaries Report
Insights from the Digital Diaries Report
The Scholars Entrepreneurship Fund (SEF) was launched in 2018 by the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program to help incubate Scholar- and alumni-led social enterprises. The SEF was also intended to support postgraduation transitions to work, provide a platform for giving back to communities, and offer an experiential learning opportunity for applying transformative leadership skills and mindsets. The SEF was implemented by Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program partners, primarily universities, and each partner designed the SEF with its own unique features. The SEF Digital Diaries were a qualitative study building on monthly — primarily quantitative — monitoring surveys with recipients of SEF funding. The findings presented here offer an in-depth look at the entrepreneurial journeys of 15 young women and men from across Africa over a two-week period in late 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The young women and men participating in the Digital Diaries were at different stages of entrepreneurship: some had established businesses in the past and were running active ventures while others were new entrepreneurs refining their first business plans. Their ventures were in eight different countries in Africa, though eight of the 15 participants were managing their ventures remotely, from both within and outside of Africa.