Programs & Projects

WDI is a founding partner of the Michigan Academy for Developing Entrepreneurs (MADE), along with Poornatha Foundation in India and the Zell Lurie Institute at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. MADE was established to support small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in low-and middle-income countries through local Entrepreneur Development Organizations (EDOs). MADE connects the resources of the University of Michigan (U-M) with the EDOs in the field and provides other support to EDOs that is based on the EDOs’ needs. MADE has involved students and/or faculty from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, psychology department, Institute for Social Research, Stamps School of Art and Design, Law School and School of Education.

Private Equity Support (PES – Kenya)

Assessed PES’ value among SME clients to inform PES’ value proposition, future strategy, and marketing execution.

Poornatha (India)

MADE supported the Poornatha team to develop a B2C Sales & Marketing Strategy. The MAP team provided Poornatha with robust recommendations on the entrepreneur-type to target including product bundling and pricing. Poornatha is already successfully operating in the B2B segment where it serves clients of India Bank and operators of retail electronic outlets through its ‘Empower’ training program. Till date, Poornatha has trained over 1,700 SME owners across 9 states in 7 different languages in India.

Poornatha has also developed an ‘Investor Awareness’ program offered through the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL), which is one of the largest depositories in the world. The course was launched by the Union Minister of Finance on May 7th, 2022. The program has impacted 5,500+ students across 28 states in India.

LvBS Consulting (Ukraine)

We have been working with LvBS to determine the role it can play to support businesses coming out of the war.

Korn Rise (Vietnam)

Working with a new potential partner, a team is investigating which products from MADE and MADE partners could be used to develop an EDO in Vietnam. Project will also include a market analysis and entry strategy.