The Gun and Einar Larsson Scholarship offers outstanding students at Stockholm School of Economics the opportunity to create and realize innovative projects abroad according to their own design. The aim of the scholarship is to offer experience and personal development outside of the academic realm that benefit the student’s education and professional aspirations.

Support for Entrepreneurs in Ghana

Markus and Lovisa were awarded the scholarship for their project "Support for Entrepreneurs in Ghana." They have a long-standing interest in entrepreneurship for economic development, and effectiveness of allocated international aid in developing countries. Lovisa is the first Retail Management student to be awarded a GELS Scholarship.

"With their passion, ambition, and great drive, Markus and Lovisa have demonstrated the qualities that characterize SSE students with great future potential. Their strong characters in combination with a clear and feasible project idea, to support and set up an ambassadorship with students, made them stand out in the competition from a dozen other strong applications. Their self-designed projects provide great potential for growing and developing the qualities and skills required to create a way forward in today's global society," said the GELS alumni network.

Project summary

The application for the Gun and Einar Larsson Scholarship entails a project in the West African country, Ghana. The impoverished country has recently shown interest in entrepreneurship and the economy is characterized by many small firms, with over 62% of the urban population being employed in such businesses. However, many Ghanian entrepreneurs face challenges when it comes to starting up and maintaining businesses. Without proper training, entrepreneurship can become difficult and the source of income unstable. Both Markus and Lovisa were coaches for a Swedish company concerned with entrepreneurship among high-school students, who offers a program over summer entailing lectures and workshops.

"We were inspired by this and saw the potential of entrepreneurship training in developing countries. We also saw the potential of increased awareness and focus on entrepreneurship in Ghana for the economic development and effectiveness of allocated international aid", says Markus.
"The finished product became a project with two aims: to train Ghanian entrepreneurs and to gather knowledge about what Swedish actors can do to support these people", says Lovisa.

For more information, please contact:
Markus Nilsson, GELS scholar 2022, email: 24780@student.hhs.se
Lovisa Bergdahl, GELS scholar 2022, email: 50649@student.hhs.se