VIRGIN Unite, the non-profit foundation of Virgin Group and Virgin Holidays, plans to establish a Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in the Caribbean that will aim to help young entrepreneurs from ‘traditionally disadvantaged’ communities actualise businesses.

The centre to be located in Montego Bay will be opened in the first quarter of 2011 and will form the hub from which the centre will branch off into the rest of the Caribbean, but the organisation will actually start up as early as December.

Patrick Casserly, who will lead the centre as interim chairman, told Caribbean Business Report that the institution could be a significant “game changer” for the business landscape in Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean, where he believes the wealth of entrepreneurial talent may have been hindered by a lack of access to the tools that would enable individuals to create thriving businesses.

“Unlike a large conglomerate that can pull together a team to create a 40-page business proposal, small entrepreneurs are maybe only able to pitch an idea,” Casserly explained. “The centre will carry them through the process of developing plans, finance models, governance models — at the centre they can get all the tools.”

What’s more, Casserly is confident that the centre can help small and medium enterprises overcome the challenge of accessing financing — a hurdle that has helped disable the SME sector from expanding at a more rapid pace.

“The Branson Centre itself will also give seed funding,” he said. “But from the incubator, when a business goes to a bank it is already a viable enterprise.”

Casserly was speaking of the facilities at the centre that will house dozens of computers, phone lines, Internet access points and fax machines that entrepreneurs will be able to use to start up their businesses.

Perhaps more importantly, Casserly said that the centre will provide comprehensive training to “traditionally disadvantaged” youth (persons between the ages of 18 and 35) and guide them through the process of establishing plans.

“We will start receiving applications from interested individuals as early as December. Out of the group we expect viable business plans,” he said. “The programme will last 12 weeks… and the proposal at the end will not only be viable to banks but also to donors.”

Virgin Holidays, which is the lead business sponsor of the centre, has committed £2 million over the next decade to support the initiative.

Casserly believes the Caribbean stands to see significant gains from formalising the “host of entrepreneurs that are not in the formal sector”.

“A central part of developing Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean is to have individual businesses invest in new enterprise,” he added, while emphasising that establishing greater numbers of SMEs can lead to more sustainable employment.

The first Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship was launched in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2006, and have supported a number of successful businesses ranging from IT, fashion designers and a bespoke uniform supplier, to small hotels to a gaming business that equips young people with computer skills, as well as providing a safe environment for them to play the latest video games.