Zaid  gebregergs,  21

Mekele    Bright Future  &  NVC   2010

"I first learned about Alchemy World when they came to my campus. I participated in a two days general workshop on how to start a business and how to identify your personal skills. It was intense but a very good way of learning."

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My name is Zaid Debregeorgis. I am 21 years old and finished my training with Alchemy World, both the Bright Future and the New Venture Creation programme in 2010.

Now I am studying 1st. degree, Bsc. in computer sciences and engineering at Mekele Institute of Technology, MIT.

I first learned about Alchemy World when they came to my campus. I participated in a two days general workshop on how to start a business and how to identify your personal skills. It was intense but a very good way of learning. It included a lot of activities, explaining your own project and presenting it. Altogether there were two workshops, continued workshops that lasted for about two days each. I also participated in the Bright Futures competition at the school but my idea was not chosen.

During the Alchemy World programme you are introduced to a new world, the world of business. It was like a wake-up call. It opened my mind and left me confident about having my own business. I learned how to handle a business, specifying my talents and goals, how to do the right thing at the right time (don’t wait until you have finished your degree, just start). And I learned about details about making business, how to choose and understand your customers, the gab market (opening a complementary business at a specific market, rather than copying existing ones).

Within a year after the Alchemy World training I started my own promotional company, Gote Promotion PLC together with my brother. Here we promote company products and services. I will focus on the software part to do the promotion. The customers can be NGO’s and private companies. We produce documentaries, PR material and others. For Mekele Univerity I produce developmental theatre about STD and HIV&AIDS (developmental theatre is when the audience participates and decides the “handling”).

We are both co-owners. My brother is a journalist and he is the director, the artist. I manage the business. And then we have an employee; she is the coordinator and the accountant. We are doing well, really well. In the future we want to become an international business. We will do it through our existing customers and business network.

The Alchemy World has training definitely taught me how to strengthen my business. It helps me to understand how a business works, to anticipate and know my every step and to plan the way we should go so we don’t just not just take random decisions. And I have become more mature as a businesswoman through this training. After all, my job is about persuading people, getting them to trust me, so my communication skills and my self-confidence are important.

Alchemy World helps a lot of people – not only me, and it is important that the programme continues. For it influences the lives of many young people, helping them to build a better future for themselves and their communities. 

Zaid Debregeorgis, Tel. 0924380998 Email ethiozaida@gmail.com