Georgia State’s Virtual Exchanges in Africa Create Connections for Local Enterprises, Exporters 

Editor’s note: This commentary by Mourad Dakhli, director of the Master of International Business program at Georgia State University, is published as part of its annual advertising partnership with Global Atlanta. 

Educational exchanges can often be conduits for business. This is the case for Georgia-based businesses that want to build new networks in Ghana and other African countries through Georgia State University’s expanding virtual exchange programs. 

Ghana is the most recent addition to our list of virtual exchanges between professors and students at GSU and their counterparts at universities in Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia. Ethiopia is in the pipeline.  

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially, could leverage these growing international partnerships to harness local knowledge and meet business contacts in the host countries. African students participating in the exchanges are very well-connected and are especially helpful for networking and gaining market intelligence. 

Funding for the Africa-focused virtual exchange programs comes from a two-year Business and International Education (BIE) grant from the U.S. Department of Education encouraging universities to partner with trade associations to improve business teaching and help local companies compete internationally.  

A key goal of the grant is to leverage educational partnerships to benefit small businesses in particular. We have partnered with the U.S.- Africa Chamber of Commerce, which has an Atlanta chapter headed by Phillip Karaya, a former GSU MBA student. 

“The virtual exchange program not only has the potential to create opportunities for students but also for the infrastructure in Atlanta to execute with people who are open and willing to make it happen,” Mr. Karaya said. He added that some of his chamber members and presidents of other chambers of commerce would “welcome any opportunity to help those abroad while adding more greatness to everything Atlanta is … as an international hub for business and opportunity.” 

Key findings from students’ virtual exchange projects could be valuable for companies to learn about emerging trends and innovations that will have the most impact on doing business in Africa. The project findings also include opportunity and risk assessments that could prove useful for businesses interested in entering the African market. 

Some of our GSU faculty plan to participate in the U.S.-Africa Chamber’s annual conference and share our students’ key findings with participants, many of whom are small businesses interested in Africa. 

The bottom line is that learning about our virtual programs is a good way to gain market knowledge on Africa. Our students have extensive ties with the business community. So, for an SME that wants to go to Africa, connecting with our partner universities there is a great way to start. It’s all about partnerships; through our university connections, we often know someone doing research with companies in a particular country. And coming in through an academic link is often easier for small businesses. 

Project focus 

GSU classes in the virtual exchange program vary in content, but all focus on real-world business issues in Africa. One consulting course with a Tunisian university asks groups of four to six students to complete PESTEL (political, economic, social, technological, educational and legal) analyses of an African country. Other projects include evaluating market opportunities for specific products or services in Africa.  

A virtual exchange class with ESCA Ecole de Management in Morocco resulted in 18 teams of students writing case reports on recommendations about the most promising sectors for potential business opportunities, said Rihab Abba, director of the program at ESCA.  

“Since most of the students involved in the virtual collaboration program aim at starting their own businesses at graduation, the knowledge brought by the projects will definitely be a shortcut to accessing the U.S. or Moroccan markets,” Dr. Abba added. 

A.J. Vogel, senior lecturer in strategy and international business at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, asserted that his students participating in the exchange have achieved their primary objective of “learning from the experience of working across country borders, time zones and different cultures.”  

Dr. Vogel added that is too early to tell if the secondary objective of developing an international network for business, travel or friendship has been achieved. But he asserted that “this is certainly something we will continue to do and, in fact, we are in the process of developing many more such projects with universities across the world.” 

Students appreciate the virtual exchange program’s focus on developing global competencies by “doing” as well as academic learning. GSU student Marva Williams noted that the program “allowed us to transfer the knowledge and expertise gained from the classroom and apply it to real-world experiences with motivated students like ourselves. We gained valuable insight by seeing the world from the lens of individuals with varied perspectives – all integral in advancing the business of international trade and how frontier markets like Africa can position themselves.” 

GSU student Sarah Samaraweera thought that “digital literacy, developing cross-cultural mindsets, communicating effectively and overcoming time zones and communication style differences among peers” were some of the main benefits of her trans-Atlantic, semester-long project with African counterparts. 

It’s all about people 

Two leaders of the virtual exchange projects at partner universities visited GSU in April: Thami Ghorfi, president of ESCA in Morocco, and Tracy Olson-BenRhouma, head of international partnerships at SMU-MSB Mediterranean School of Business in Tunisia. Their visit to Atlanta shows their commitment and how much they value the program.

The new Ghana virtual exchange project is led by a graduate of the GSU Global Partners MBA program, who is now a professor at the partner university there.  

GSU has many, many international connections. We have focused on Africa with this virtual exchange project because it’s the “last frontier” in international business. One-third of the fastest-growing economies is in Africa. And business opportunities are no longer focused just on natural resources – there are growing opportunities in health care, information and communications technology, consumer goods and infrastructure sectors, especially for SMEs. 

Most of our current African students are from West Africa, including Ghana. But because Atlanta has an important East African community, we are looking to expand our virtual exchanges with those countries as well. Our goal is to have a virtual exchange program in each region of Africa. 

And we hope the country partnerships will continue indefinitely. Our relationship with ESCA has been going for seven years and has expanded beyond the virtual exchange. We are now writing joint research and exchanging visiting scholars as well. 

We expect to finalize our virtual exchange program with an Ethiopian university before the Fall semester begins in August. We are hoping to bring two more GSU faculty on board to participate in the virtual exchange programs, and then we can bring in even more international partners. 

GSU has additional virtual exchange programs with universities in Brazil, China, France, India, Israel and Portugal. 

Learn more about GSU’s virtual exchange programs here. Contact me at mdakhli@gsu.edu for more information.