Equipping a Culture of Entrepreneurship in Haiti

It remains an integral part of the Presidential Precinct’s mission that alumni return home to invest their newfound knowledge, expertise, and networks. Here at the end of 2019, we have the opportunity to reflect on 288 new alumni who have participated in 14 distinct programs at the Presidential Precinct in 2019 – continuing their journeys to realize a better world from every region of the globe.

Numbers aside, we gain the most insight and we have the most hope in the power of individual stories. Our alumni are tackling daunting, global challenges, often illustrated in big, long-term goals like the SDGs. Nevertheless, they move our world forward one step at a time, one community at a time, by changing one life at a time.

Recently, our Director of Programs Nancy Hopkins had an opportunity to catch up with 2017 alumnus Jacquelin Alcius, one of nine Young Leaders of the Americas (YLAI) Fellows that came to the Precinct that year. Jacquelin is the Founder of the Alternatives Business Incubator and Accelerator in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. In the past two years, Jacquelin has worked to tackle significant barriers for Hatian entrepreneurs – foremost a lack of technical and financial support.

During his time in Charlottesville, Jacquelin worked alongside the Community Investment Collaborative and University of Virginia iLab – both offering compelling illustrations of space and resources for new business ideas to flourish. (learn more about Jaquelin’s experience as a YLAI Fellow here)

Just six months after returning to Haiti, Jacquelin formalized his passion and networks to create the Alternative Business Incubator and Accelerator (ABIA), which less than two years later has already worked with ten new ventures navigating through their startup phase. Jacquelin noted, “We work so hard to help each startup in the incubator to launch as soon as possible while also ensuring that they are prepared to raise capital.” ABIA’s early startups include Le Nutritif, a café and restaurant in Cap-Haitien that sources local ingredients with a focus on promoting good choices in nutrition.

Ventures coming out of ABIA are the product of a twelve week curriculum that offers the perspectives of experts in marketing, law, business managers, accountability experts, and leadership coaches – an incredibly rare collision of knowledge for any Haitian community. Jacquelin reports that only three other incubators similar to ABIA are available to a Haitian population that has recently surpassed 11 million people. With such a high demand, his organization is exploring scalable opportunities through a virtual incubation network, run by an in-house calling center, to help larger numbers of startups move towards launch.

Regarding this new, virtual approach, Jacquelin emphasized, “I always believe in the power of networking [among other things] as a source for inspiration, connection, and deep learning.”

And speaking of networks, Jacquelin was sure to affirm the recent re-launch of the Presidential Precinct Network. “Virtual resources on the PPN can be helpful for my work, especially resources on civic leadership and economic development,” he said. “I joined the PPN to stay connected with my peers. I hope for a day when everyone on the [Precinct] Network will live an experience like I have [through YLAI].” (learn more about the re-launched Network here)

As for next steps – Jacquelin assured us that “only the next 10 years can really show how big the impact of the Precinct family has had on my work.” Working to serve a country that is still known as the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, Jacquelin and his team at ABIA have an enormous task at hand, but one venture at a time, they are committed to empowering the Haitian spirit of entrepreneurship.

We could not be more excited to follow their work.