About GEN in Mauritius

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GEN began working in Mauritius in 2010 when it partnered with Empretec Mauritius to organize the island’s first Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) campaign. The entrepreneurial community responded enthusiastically—more than 1,800 people participated in events organized by 15 different organizations. GEN’s early campaigns focused on turning entrepreneurial ambition into practical business skills and opening doors for founders outside traditional financing, planting the seeds for more than a decade of ecosystem building.

GEN and Empretec Mauritius—a capacity-building organization founded by Sanjay Mungur that operates under the guidance of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)—followed up by organizing Entrepreneurial Training Workshops during successive campaigns. Instead of conventional classroom instruction, the workshops apply UNCTAD's behavioral methodology and 10 personal entrepreneurial competencies. As they multiplied each November, participation widened, with the campaigns eventually reaching more than 200,000 people through dozens of activities organized by more than 50 partners. GEN and Empretec Mauritius carried the campaign beyond Port Louis to Montagne Blanche in partnership with the Anthurium Women Cooperative Society, which organized networking and training events. As the numbers grew and the campaign extended further across the island, recognition rose, drawing government leaders into the initiative and connecting Mauritian delegates to GEN's global gatherings.

The growth of the campaign led to year-round work supporting entrepreneurs and coordinating the growing ecosystem. In response, GEN established an affiliate, GEN Mauritius, led by Mungur to carry the work forward. He also founded FinClub, a peer-to-peer lending platform built to channel financing to entrepreneurs and small businesses. The GEN Mauritius team includes Irshad Bodheea, a business strategist, industrial engineer, and master trainer for entrepreneurship development. Together, they work to strengthen the pipeline of local founders and connect them to capital, training, and GEN’s wider global network. Its policy-facing work has included leading the team that developed the country's 10-Year Master Plan in partnership with the Ministry of Business, Enterprise and Cooperatives.

GEN added to its more recent Mauritius campaigns multiple business-facing events and competitions, including the MBN Business EXPO staged at the Honoris Educational Network in Highlands and the national finals of the Entrepreneurship World Cup, the global pitch competition GEN launched in 2019. A recurring thread across this work is closing the capital access gap for founders through targeted lending and seed-funding partnerships with entrepreneur support organizations. This focus has repeatedly drawn women founders and rural cooperatives into the campaign.

A consistent feature of GEN's work in Mauritius is government engagement. In 2012, senior Mauritian officials publicly backed GEN's Global Entrepreneurship Week campaign. This effort was led by Vice-Prime Minister Xavier-Luc Duval, then minister of finance and economic development, alongside several cabinet colleagues. In 2015, Soomilduth Bholah, minister of business, enterprise and cooperatives, carried the engagement forward. In 2018, representatives from Mauritius joined a Startup Nations Policy Dialogue convened by UNCTAD in Rwanda, part of a series examining the regulatory barriers facing entrepreneurs across Africa. More recently, GEN has counted the Ministry of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives among the government partners engaged with its work on the island.

GEN connects Mauritian founders to many of its global programs. For example, Ecolozik Eco Ltd., an ecological e-commerce platform founded by Angelique Samouilhan, took first prize at the national EWC competition from a field of 15 applicants. The pool also included La Maison Ojas of Albion and Morivert Co. Ltd. of Port Louis, and advanced to the next stage of the global competition. Samouilhan joined the GEN Starters Club, an invitation-only community of founders from around the world. GEN also links the island's investors to the global community; Angel Investors of Mauritius joined GEN’s Global Business Angel Network (GBAN).

GEN maintains relationships with a wide range of Mauritian institutions and partners, including the Ministry of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives; the Ministry of Business, Enterprise and Cooperatives; the state agency SME Mauritius Ltd; Angel Investors of Mauritius; FinClub; and the Association of Mauritian Entrepreneurs, whose president, Sanjay Ramgutty, also serves as a mentor and competition judge. Empretec Mauritius's standing as a UNCTAD-guided training center anchors this work, which reaches beyond Port Louis to Montagne Blanche and to founders based in communities such as Albion.

As GEN continues to widen its reach in Mauritius, its work points outward as well as inward: GEN Mauritius draws on a regional training network, and FinClub is extending its lending model to other African markets, positioning Mauritian founders to build across the continent. GEN's goal in the country remains what it has been since its first campaign: connecting Mauritian founders with the knowledge, networks, capital, and policy support they need to start and scale.