About Us

WHAT IS URBAN MBA?

Urban MBA is about developing enterprise skill sets to equip marginalised and disengaged young adults to be resilient in times of personal turmoil as well as during the journey of building a business.

Urban MBA is a registered non-profit organisation. We provide enterprise programmes and best of breed business courses aimed to help young people develop their ideas and start their own sustainable commercial and social businesses.

Our programme focuses on young adults who are not in education, employment, or training, and who need to be reached by alternative teaching methods to make the programme content come to life.

During the programme students will learn valuable skill sets such as goal setting, confidence building, and presentation skills through the use of technology. These skill sets and training methods will help our students to apply the learnings in a practical business application.

Founder, Koﬁ Oppong developed an innovative way to teach by illustrating points using cultural references, storytelling and metaphors relevant to young disengaged adults in a manner that resonates with them. The programme makes use of sport, music, technology and fashion to demonstrate potentially tiresome and challenging subjects such as ﬁnance and accounts in a way that can be understood and is relevant to young adults today.

Kofi is an expert in resilience and developing a business from the ground up, having started out at the age of 17 on the street after going against family expectations, he is now the brilliant mind behind Urban MBA. This was the catalyst to the legacy he is creating and the impact on the lives he and the team at Urban MBA are transforming.

All Urban MBA courses are accredited through SFEDI.

SFEDI Awards was founded in 2007 creating the first dedicated Awarding Organisation specialising in business enterprise and business support, a standing still enjoyed to this day within the UK.

Our qualifications are built on the extensive research that underpins the SFEDI National Occupational Standards and the expertise of the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs.

You will gain dependent on what course you enrol for:

Level One Award in Understanding Enterprise
L2 Certificate in Preparing to Set Up a New Business
Level 3 Award in Business Innovation, Sustainability and Growth
Level 3 Cert in Business Innovation, Sustainability and Growth

URBAN MBA’S MISSION AND VISION

To create a world where no young person is lost or left behind.

Through Urban MBA we empower marginalised and disengaged young adults with the conﬁdence, knowledge and focus to strive for success and independence.

Urban MBA framework – Alternative Education Provider
At Urban MBA we discover, inspire and support potential entrepreneurs using learning scenarios that is appropriate to their needs and provides forward-focused adaptable tools.

This is especially important as we work closely with Generation Y – born in 1997 and raised in the 2000’s. Currently this generation accounts for 20 percent of working adults and are known for being the visual and video generation, ‘bite –sized’ learners and supporters of easy technology.

Our specialised 12 week programme allows young people, especially those from marginalised communities, to re-engage with education, unlock the power of their imagination and develop skills that enables them to become thriving, self-employed professionals who contribute to the greater social and economic development of the areas they live and work in.

EVIDENCE OF NEED

“It’s not an attention problem, it’s an 8-second filter” (McKnisey & Company)
The recent headline-grabbing studies suggest that Gen Z attention spans have shrunk to eight seconds and that they’re unable to focus for extended amounts of time. However, we found that Gen Z actually have what we’re calling highly evolved “eight-second filters.”

Research Completed By The Sutton Trust Is Still Relevant Now

Click here to download the full Sutton Trust Report

Research has evidenced that young people are currently facing difficulties to access employment, due to a lack of skills, low aspirations, and academic disengagement. This is a typical symptom of ‘generations Y and Z’; the new generations frequently described as the ‘lost children’. Market research has led Urban MBA to believe that this issue comes from an existing education system that is not tailored anymore to the profile of the new generations and the digital world they live in.

OBJECTIVE

The Objective of Urban MBA is to re-train and re-educate disadvantaged, marginalised and in most cases disengaged young adults (our primary target is 18 – 25, but not exclusive) using enterprise and life skills to equip them with transferable assets so they are in a position to find employment or to start an enterprise.

STRATEGY

“Theory of change”
To reach this goal, Urban MBA finds, inspires and supports potential entrepreneurs using communication that is appropriate to their needs and providing forward-focused, adaptable tools. This allows young people to re-engage with education, unlock the power of their imagination and develop skills that enables them to become thriving professionals. As a result, young people are inspired, skilled and knowledgeable; they start and run their own businesses which contributes to greater social and economic benefit.

Enterprise