The project known as “Enhancing women entrepreneur’s competitiveness and opportunities to benefit from regional and international trade” is intended to support Women in the Informal Cross Border Trade (WICBT) to meet market requirements. The TWCC is implementing this project with supervision from the Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO).

The programme will assist and provide the necessary support and guidance to women in business and advocate for favourable policies in which women entrepreneurs can flourish while empowering them to create wealth through: business diagnostics, capacity building, resource mobilization, institutional development, networking and advocacy.

The institution’s Board Chairman, Fatuma Riyami believes the best way to eradicate the shortcomings encountered by these female entrepreneurs is to educate the operators themselves and empower them to question any unfair treatment.

According to her, majority of female entrepreneurs engaging in cross border trade especially those in textile, handcraft making and food processing are unaware of their rights and therefore do not enjoy them and benefit from what they produce or manufacture.

Riyami argued that there is need to train them because women carry out the majority of the work force and produce most of the food consumed and businesses but they don’t benefit from it.

“Our focus on this programme was just to help women entrepreneurs in the informal cross border trade to become more aware of their rights, strengthen their socio-economic capability and status as well as help them meet market requirements,” she said.

The training will also empower women entrepreneur on essential knowledge of the human rights to which they are entitled, how to own the land, how to do business and benefit from it, and other issues.

About 98 cross border entrepreneurs engaged in handcraft making, textile sector and food processing have been trained on this programme with the support from UN women in collaboration with the Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO).

According ro a report, in Tanzania and other African countries, women face discrimination in many sectors in terms of land, business, education, employment and other factors relating to women activities and this continues to widen the gap between women and men. Training them on women’s rights will assist them to have better skills of their rights, they will manage to protect themselves against violence and to fight against women rights violations especially for the businesses they carry out in cross border trade.

The post TWCC Trains Female Entrepreneurs On Cross Border Trade appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

An example is 29-year old Justin Stanford, a self-made Software millionaire entrepreneur who has managed to create a technological innovation hub christened Silicon Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. His first two business ideas didn’t work out and left him penniless, before his discovery of an anti-virus software product in Eastern Europe which became his get out of jail ticket. Now, the IT geek from Stellenbosch, Cape Town, who dropped out of High School, aged 18, to launch his first online venture from a friend’s garage, sits atop an information technology empire.

Discover your passion sooner rather than later and conquer adversity

Justin Stanford fell in love with computers at a very tender age. His strange habit of tinkering around with his father’s PC ensured that the intricacies of a machine that many had yet to become familiar with became self-taught. Eventually Stanford, would drop out of high school and try his luck at business.

“When I was in prep school, I was an A-plus student, top of the class. My mom always pushed me to do well, so I did. It was the same in the early part of high school, but when I was in standard seven (grade nine) my whole family was involved in a massive car accident. My mother and my sister were killed, the rest of us, my brother, father and I were all lucky to make it out alive. When this whole thing happened, it turned my whole world around,” said Stanford.

“Firstly, I was a bit amazed to still be alive. Secondly, you realise that anything is possible; you don’t actually have to do things the way everybody thinks that you have to do them. I was always interested in business and had always wondered about this idea of starting up my own company. So I started losing interest in school, and was thinking much bigger than that. I was already looking out into the world, looking for ideas, and doing little businesses on the side,” Stanford further elaborated.

“I was always fascinated by business and technology. I ran a few businesses on the side, but eventually had to go back to school. I hated it! One day, I couldn’t stand it any longer and told my dad about my plans,” Stanford once remarked. Although, many of his peers and elders scoffed at his risky move, Stanford remained undeterred in his relentless desire to venture into business, because he figured that he had nothing to lose.

Develop your passion and create your own opportunities

“I was always interested in technological stuff, even from a young age. When I was nine, my dad bought us a PC. I liked fiddling with it and breaking it. I had a talent for it and I understood it. So I was understandably excited when the internet came around in 1994. I didn’t have internet access myself, but I knew people who did, so I would always screw around on their computers or whatever. And at the same time that I was thinking about business, I also thought about what kind of business and I realized that technology was the best way forward,” says Stanford.

”In the mid-1990s news of young guys abroad selling their online start-up ventures for millions started filtering through to SA. I was inspired and decided that I wanted to get involved. I left school early and struggled for a few years before launching my first successful venture – ESet, a global anti-virus software programme that’s now utilised in 20 countries. I had no formal training; I learnt everything I know for free online. Back then people thought I was crazy and that I could never pull it off, but today there are loads of crazy young people doing it; the new generation has a different approach,” Stanford further explained.

Even without money, you can still be a successful entrepreneur; a penniless Justin Stanford discovered his goldfield in Eastern Europe.

“I told them that if they could see to a more user-friendly interface and repackage their product for Western consumption, I wanted in,” says Stanford, referring to ESet, a Slovakian anti-virus product that was astonishingly good technologically, but marketed poorly.

Humble beginnings and bootstrapping

After convincing his principals to do business with him, they never suspected that he was a one-man show with a door for a desk and no money. After Stanford went for three years with no luck and in the wilderness living off R2,000 (about $200) a month, today, Eset’s Nod32 which is a multi-award-winning anti-virus product has made it possible for 4Di Capital to branch out into the comprehensive ESet Smart Security Suite. Eset has been rated one of Deloitte &Touche’s 500 fastest-growing technology companies worldwide for consecutive years. Stanford sits on its global marketing taskforce and provides critical input into new product development.

Stanford says, “I applied my mind and devised some low-cost distribution and marketing techniques. I realised we could produce and disseminate quality press releases cheaply by applying our industry knowledge, leveraging virus outbreaks as our angle, and employing the broad wires.” While doing a good job of shoestring marketing, he also built an online distribution platform that auto-generated invoices, issued licences and allowed download, all this without any human intervention.

Inspiration for the Silicon Cape Initiative, and Venture Capital

A strong belief in South Africa’s potential to become a leading technology innovation hub, led him to co-founding the Silicon Cape Initiative, a non-profit, community –driven movement that aims to turn the fertile cape into Africa’s own Silicon Valley.

“When I started out there wasn’t an IT ecosystem in Cape Town. Start-ups worked individually and there was a perception that you had to leave SA to make it big. Vinnie Lingham and I wanted to create a community to promote a virtual concept of Cape Town as an innovation hub, and we wanted to connect businesspeople with a vested interest in technology to resources and to each other. We expected a hundred or so people to attend our launch in 2009 and it was so oversubscribed – over 1000 responded – we ended up having to turn people away,” he boldly stated.

And capital was poured into his venture capital fund by one of the wealthiest families, and one of the richest men in South Africa.

Investment group E. Oppenheimer & Son, a family trust for the South African mining dynasty, boosted the investment capacity of early technology venture capital firm 4Di Capital after investing an undisclosed amount in its 4Di capital Fund.

“We are very pleased to have the Oppenheimer family on board to assist us in capitalising on the growing number of exciting new technology opportunities that need start-up capital and support to penetrate the global market,” founding partner Justin Stanford said.

Another notable investor in the fund is the Reinet Fund – chaired by Johann Rupert, one of the richest men in South Africa and chairman of Swiss-based luxury-goods company Richemont, as well as of investment firm Remgro.

“Venture capital is one piece of the puzzle that has started to fall in place – there was never much to go around in South Africa in the past. Now, it’s not just wine sloshing around in the vineyards around Cape Town, but also old money flowing to interesting investments. The venture capital scene is still small – but there is far more enthusiasm for tech investment than there was a decade ago,” he added.

Already, mobile community start-up Motribe was sold to social network Mxit. “There has been an explosion in start-ups over the past three years,” said Stanford, founder of security company ESet Southern Africa and CEO of Investment holding company 4Di Capital last November. “People are moving down to Cape Town from Johannesburg and we’re seeing some quitting their jobs to become entrepreneurs.”

“Like San Francisco, we have the right mix of people to get things happening – geeks, young people and people with money,” he emphasized.

The major attraction to Cape Town for Tech geeks, and the future of the industry

“It’s a confluence of things. Techies gravitate here because here they’re generally driven more by their environment than money. Geeks like me like things to be organized and Cape Town is not only the most beautiful city in SA, but also the most organised. The universities act as anchors and the coastal geography lends itself to a more relaxed lifestyle. Also, to make initiatives happen you need innovative ideas and wealth to get the ideas off the ground, and the lifestyle here trends to attract wealthy investors,” he hastily stated.

Stanford further says, “We’ve got a lot of bright young people here and the capital they need to grow business. Expats are returning from abroad and people are moving here from other cities in SA because this is where it’s all happening. My venture capital company 4Di is re-investing in the next generation of start-ups, and individual angel investors and initiatives like Google Umbono are identifying good ideas and growing them. Internet access is widespread and relatively affordable here and there are opportunities for technology to contribute to economic development and create social change. It’s a strong tool for empowerment and a potential economic driver, and it’s a great enabler that doesn’t require physical infrastructure.”

In conclusion, Justin Stanford’s story is testament to the undisputable fact that a combination of resilience, passion, hard work and vision, will eventually help you to achieve anything you desire.

” What got me to my real beginning, without a doubt, was just perseverance. You also need to be a good observer and a good listener. I spent a lot of time listening to what much older and much wiser business people had to say. I still do it today,” he remarked.

The post Diary Of An Under 30 CEO: From High School Dropout To Entrepreneur appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

SkyNews reported that the judgment against Prest was pronounced on Wednesday after seven judges of the UK’s Supreme Court had unanimously agreed to reassess the case .

“I’m delighted and relieved that the Supreme Court has ruled as it did.” said Mrs Prest.

“It is more a case of satisfaction and relief than celebration.” She added.

The ruling orders the business mogul to transfer properties managed by his firm to his wife as part of the divorce award.

A Court of Appeal, last October ruled that a High Court judge had wrongly ordered Mr Prest to transfer properties worth millions of dollars to his ex-spouse.

However this ruling has now been overturned by highest court in the UK’s verdict.

Mr Prest, the co-founder of Nigerian oil company, Petrodel Resources is said to be worth $75 million, according to the High Court’s declaration. However, his ex-wife disputed the figure, claiming he’s worth more in the “hundreds of millions” of dollars region.

The post Billionaire Oil Tycoon Michael Prest Loses $26m Divorce Battle appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

Mukesh Ambani has earmarked this land – jointly owned by Ambani’s Reliance Industries and Delta Corp East Africa – for commercial and residential property development.

Reliance Industries is the major stakeholder with a 60 percent shareholding. Delta Corp has 40 percent holding.

“DCEAL has acquired 10 prime plots of land in Nairobi with a planned developable area of approximately 1.2 million square feet of commercial and residential assets,” Business Daily quoted latest Delta Corp’s report for the year to March 31 2012.

In the recent past, Ambani has bought prime plots of land in Nairobi and developed them for residential and commercial development.

In other instances, Ambani sold or rented these plots out to global bodies, private firms and government and privately-owned organisations.

“Some of the most recent multi-billion shilling transactions include sale of the Delta office towers located in Westlands to the University of Nairobi and financial consulting firm PwC, and another block in Upper Hill area, Delta Center, to the World Bank,” Business Daily reported.

The post Indian Billionaire Buys 10 Prime Land Slots In Nairobi For $33.9m appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

The survey which was carried out on 26,000 business managers and owners across 90 countries, including Africa, noted that despite the significant contribution of small and micro businesses to economic growth, they face serious challenges with insufficient state support.

According to the research, which was provided by Africa Consultant, BondPR EMEA, Monique Thompson, respondents identified lack of access to credit (76 per cent) as the biggest deterrent to setting up a business today, while red tape (74 percent) and lack of government support (61 per cent) followed. Half of the entrepreneurs who took part in the survey also cited the state of the economy and market domination by large corporations as serious hindrances.

“A recent survey conducted by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria revealed that 80 percent of entrepreneurs in Nigeria concur that one of the biggest obstacles is access to finance. The banking industry in Nigeria has pledged to increase lending to the country’s MSME’s and make loans for this segment of the market more affordable.”

The firm however noted that entrepreneurial spirit remains strong globally, particularly in Africa, in spite of adverse economic conditions. It added that globally, 85 per cent of entrepreneurs would do it again despite difficulties and lack of state support.

SMEs are regarded as the engines of growth, as they generate 50 percent of all jobs globally, yet in spite of this, they attract just a tiny proportion of overall investment across the G20.

In Nigeria for example, the report says “Small and medium enterprises (MSME’s) account for approximately 50 per cent of GDP and provide employment to almost half of the workforce.”

While noting that the challenges faced by entrepreneurs are not new, Regus VP for Africa, Joanne Bushell, commended their (entrepreneur) resilient spirit saying “Thank goodness for the Unstoppable Entrepreneur!. Who knows what state the economy would be in if they decided to play safe and downsize like a lot of their larger and arguably better resourced competitors.”

“The challenges they face are not new, but they are clearly saying that little impact has been felt from state support initiatives, despite the best efforts of government.”

Bushell however stated that “Entrepreneurial firms will need to remain nimble to navigate choppy waters and succeed. The lack of institutional support means that business owners will continue to increasingly favour flexible working in order to avoid lengthy leases and free up their working capital so they can concentrate on growing their business.”

The post African Entrepreneurs Remain Resilient Despite Lack Of Credit appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

VENTURES AFRICA – South African billionaire Mark Shuttleworth’s attack on the country’s exchange controls could “pull the whole system down”, with the entrepreneur being described as a “financial refugee” by the Reserve Bank.

Shuttleworth had assets worth more than ZAR4.2 billion ($422 million) when he left the country for the Isle of Man tax haven in the United Kingdom. While transferring his fortune out of the country in 2008 and 2009, he had to pay a 10 percent levy.

The founder of Canonical, the firm behind the Ubuntu project, took the South African government to court in a bid to have the exchange control system declared unconstitutional, the South African Press Agency reported.

Shuttleworth is also demanding the South African Reserve Bank return the ZAR250 million ($2.5 million) he paid in 2009.

Gilbert Marcus SC, Shuttleworth’s advocate, said on Monday: “One of the founding principles of a parliamentary democracy is that there should be no taxation without representation and that the executive branch of government should not itself be entitled to raise revenue for its operation, but should rather be dependent on the taxing power of parliament which is democratically accountable to the tax-paying public.“[The Reserve Bank] claims because the levy is only imposed on a small part of the population it does not qualify as tax.”

Tim Harris MP, the Democratic Alliance’s shadow minister for finance, told HumanIPO last month the government should drop its remaining exchange controls in a bid to attract more foreign investment to the country and create a more conducive environment for entrepreneurs and startups.

But Jeremy Gauntlett SC, representing the Reserve Bank, does not agree and described a Shuttleworth victory as being “the most radical court order imaginable”.

Gauntlett said: “If the applicant succeeds in striking down section nine of the Currency Act and declaring all orders and rules unconstitutional, there would be no inhibition on removing capital from this country at all. Section nine is the heart of the exchange control system and he wants to knock [it] down.”

He added: “He couldn’t get his money out of the country. Now he wants to pull the whole system down. Why should this financial refugee, living on the Isle of Man, speak on behalf of the entirety of South African society?”

The post Internet Billionaire Mark Shuttleworth A “Financial Refugee”? appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

Initially this sounds like an Afrikaans name. Coming out of the moderate temperature of the CTICC, the breeze is certainly most welcome. The days has been spent attending press conferences, plenary sessions, interviewing business leaders and constant mind reviews of people I have to meet and interview.

Walking over to the Westin Hotel, my head keeps nodding for about 30 seconds as constantly you are greeting fellow attendees. And yet, again, we empty pockets, slip your equipment back off your shoulder to go through strict and fairly tight security.

As I pass through security, I start navigating my way to a plush reddish leather couch, directly opposite the information and reception desk of the hotel. It’s not long before I am greeted by a smiling face and the accent not of a South African, but German.

We start making our way to the patio get a table and fresh air. Seated we begin our discussion around getting to know who Christian Wessels is, his work around being a young global leader and specifically delving into his role in reforming accessible banking for the lower spectrum of the market.

Firstly, Christian is Partner and Head, sub-Saharan Africa at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, Africa, Middle East and Turkey. Christian is leading the company’s work with private and public institutions across sub-Saharan Africa. He has more than 12 years of banking and consulting experience, out of which he worked the last 8 years in various parts of the sub-Saharan region.

Through his areas of competence, which include strategy, transformation and post-merger integration programmes, financial services and the public sector, Christian also focuses on areas that positively impact society, in addition to delivering sound business returns, through innovative financial services. Before joining Roland Berger, he worked for a leading management consultancy, pioneering their work in sub-Saharan Africa. As Director at Barclays, he supported the retail expansion and restructuring of acquisitions across 12 sub-Saharan countries. Christian holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Cologne in Germany and can boldly prance around with the esteemed title of Young Global Leader.

The reason Christian is based in Africa is simply because the one place he had never been, was Cape Town. And so when he started his consulting career, coming in contact with Barclays and realising this was not exactly what he was looking for, they asked him if you fancied a position in Africa. After requesting this, Christian says, “three days later they came back to me and asked if I would consider a position in Johannesburg with the view of expanding, modernising and partially integrating some of the subsidiaries throughout sub-Sahara, that Barclays had acquired through the an M&E with ABSA Bank”.

While at Barclays, Roland Berger approached Christian with the view of building and expanding their business in West Africa ad also other geographies in Africa. To do this, the company decided differentiate and so opened up “shop” in Lagos, Nigeria, where Christian has since been.

Christian highlights that he found it fascinating the low level of financial inclusion in Africa. Thus when he started at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, he made this a core topic within the company. In doing so, Roland Berger worked with regulators, telecommunications companies, the World Bank and numerous NGO’s and larger institutions. What they gathered from this Christian says, was that with the same applied rigor as with other projects, research showed a path to profitably enter the lower chain of the market.

This fact ties in well with the fact that in South Africa, Michael Jordaan (Whom I have also interviewed) steered FNB to the Most Innovative Bank in the World Award.

It was on the back of this that Christian was appointed as a Young Global Leader.

Christian says, “He finds Africa full of entrepreneurial drive, creative ideas in a growing environment”. Thinking back to when he started the company, sitting on the balcony of his hotel in Nigeria wondering who may speak with other than the waitress, Roland Berger is now a booming well established player in not only the banking sector but consumer goods as well.

Christian in explaining his being on the continent exudes vision. He may be humble about wanting to be in Cape Town as his primary objective, but it was eight years ago that he realised that Africa has growing potential.

Christian depicts that all Africans need access to financial services. All people according to his reasoning have financial service’s needs. He continues and points out that if we use all the money on the streets in the informal sector, around $60bn he adds, we could have a much more stable financial sector.

Continuing the conversation around technology, Christian highlights that technology will be the enabler in various forms in Africa. There are more mobile phones than bank accounts in Africa, he adds. Technology can be used for transacting between people, businesses, point-of sale devices, act as an agent for the bank, forming a new and much needed transacting platform.

The regulatory environment, Christian points out, needs an overhaul. He quips, “how can we hold someone to an onerous process of identifying himself with an ID card due to anti laundering regulations, yet he or she earns $5. Central Banks also need to adapt and realise he notes that the classic brick and mortar branch is not feasible to bring in the additional 400 million that need banking accounts on top of the 100 million already in the financial eco-system.

Looking to regulation for a moment, Christian identifies straight adoption of fiscal regulation as a hindrance. For example he says, “We need strict regulation where there is high risk and less regulation where there is low risk, instead of combing everyone with the same comb.

Considering the global financial effects on Africa and in particular Nigeria, Christian says that the Nigerian authorities have to be congratulated for transforming the financial sector in such a short time. Nigeria he says probably has to strengthen on stability by using their money on broadening their sector. All banks a prone to risk due to over appetite. In terms of moving forward, the Central Bank governor, security stock exchange and the stock exchange has played a critical role in transforming the financial sector in Nigeria over the last four years.

Another important aspect is that only 30 percent of Nigerian population have bank accounts with 70% still using informal transacting mechanisms.

Christian mentions that an probable reasons why banks have not entered the SME sector is due to;

- High cost

- They don’t know the market well, and

- 50% of SME’s are failures – risk-cost ratio

Some performing examples on improving non-performing loans are to 1) increase the top-line of the business. In South Africa and probably most other African countries, banking staff do not have the expertise for this. In good models, Christian indicates that banks have achieved 20% return on equity on the SME loans book.

SME Market Mistakes in Banking

Eagerly, Christian identifies some of the failures in SME banking;

- Collateralised lending – most SME’s in Africa will not qualify for any loan in this regard

- Marketable Assets in SME – Very difficult to find

- Audited financial statements –not always a requirements for the type of legal entity, yet still demanded by many banks

- Balance Sheet lending – most SME’s have not been able to procure larger, expandable assets

- Cash Flow lending – banks have not realised that his option ties into

- Their lack of ability to also re-structure the business to increase top-line of the SME

Christian passionately states that, “Africa has moves from a continent of opportunity to that of consistent small accomplishments”. “If we (Africa) are able to create the jobs, we have a very good chance of making tis work”.

The post Christian Wessels: Midas Touch Of Deutsch Strategische Präzision appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

Recently, the media was agog with news of the launch of Nigeria’s first online university –Beni American University (BAU), which seeks to absorb a great number of students, thus reducing the rate and number of students who are without proper higher education. According to its website, BAU is West Africa’s only low cost international academic institution dedicated to the advancement and access of higher education to everyone. The high-quality low-cost global educational model embraces the worldwide presence of the Internet and dropping technology costs to bring university-level studies within reach of millions of Nigerians.

The university, founded by Gossy Ukanwoke, a 24-year old Nigerian Management Information Systems graduate from the Girne American University, was created to fill up the valley in the Nigerian educational system which is primarily due to infrastructure challenges. As a sister to his first startup, Student Circle network, an academic social network that brings over 10,000 free academic notes, essay and journals from over 200 universities globally, Ukanwoke’s BAU “is a proper university with a proper learning structure.” This also means that at the end of the Degree or Certificate programs, students receive a certificate and their transcripts. According to Ukanwoke “Beni American will continue to set examples in the African continent.”

Ventures Africa’s Busayo Sotunde recently sat with Gossy Ukanwoke, who has been described as Nigeria’s Mark Zuckerberg, to get insights to his social enterprise and what it aims to achieve in the society.

VA: You recently launched Beni American University, an online university. What was inspired this?

GOSSY: There is an obvious gap in the Nigerian educational sector that is primarily due to infrastructure challenges. An online university can allow us to accommodate as many students as possible with very little burden on infrastructure.

VA: Why the name Beni American University, if it is targeted at Africans? Brand-wise, why not a name that sounds more African?

GOSSY: Having a name that sounds more African is a myth and actually makes no difference. Beni American University does not sound non-African because we have American within the name. The American is a descriptive. It says that kind of model the university is running. The same way you have Universities of Science and Technology, Universities of Agriculture, Open Universities etc.

VA: What is the goal of the Beni American University and what are the opportunities presented by the institution?

GOSSY: To provide world class education and training for our students when they are with us and to provide opportunities beyond their study after they graduate. We believe that there is a high level of unemployment to continue pushing out thousands of graduates with no entrepreneurial or hands on skills that can allow them become productive without seeking for regular employment.

VA: What is Beni American University’s business model?

GOSSY: The university is a social enterprise. We provide world class learning at the barest fraction obtainable when compared to universities with similar qualities outside Nigeria. The university is a privately funded entity.

VA: Before you established the Beni American University, you had the Student Circle Network (SCN); what is the synergy between the two businesses?

GOSSY: Students Circle Network has continued to exist as a Free Resource Repository for students globally. It is an entity that its goals do not overlap with the goals of Beni American University. Students from BAU can continue to use SCN like the hundreds of thousands of students who use it daily. However students who use SCN who feel that they need to take the step upwards towards gaining a certificate for the learning they do online, they can sign up with BAU and take our courses.

VA: You once said that you created Beni American University out of the concern and challenge to do something about Nigeria’s failing educational system, what has been the acceptance level so far especially in Africa?

GOSSY: The reception has been exceptional and encouraging. We have students apply daily from all parts of Africa and Nigeria. People are excited at what we are doing and they looking forward to when we can start to accomplish the goals that we have set out.

VA: So far, how many users have subscribed to Beni American University?

GOSSY: In the case of Students Admitted, we have 115 students across Africa.

VA: What are your aspirations concerning the institution?

GOSSY: We are hoping to take Beni American University physical as well. In this scenario, we will have our online university and a concurrent physical university. In line with this, we have announced our acquisition of expandable development land and our visionary plan to develop a multi-million dollar 10,000 student capacity campus in Adija, Benue State.

VA: What is the organisation structure like and the staff strength at the moment?

GOSSY: BAU has a standard organisation structure that every university has. We have staff strength of 32.

VA: You are quite young; have you ever worked under anyone before?

GOSSY: Yes I have taken internship jobs before I got into the university.

VA: What business/ management stuff are you reading at the moment and which have you read that has inspired you much so far?

GOSSY: Currently not reading any. However , Talent is Never Enough by John C. Maxwell has been a book close my heart.

VA: Recent/past partnerships and how has these partnerships help the business?

GOSSY: Our Partners have been wonderful. Our sector is a sector that can only make progress through synergy and partnerships. We have some amazing partners who continue to support our university academically, technically and culturally. Here is a list of our partners - BAU Partners

VA: What extra ingredient do you think youngsters need to succeed in the outside world?

GOSSY: Vision, Perseverance and Discipline.

VA: What is the future of online University presence in Nigeria or Africa?

GOSSY: It has come to stay. I see a lot more online universities being kicked off in the region in a very short time.

VA: Any advise to other social entrepreneurs?

GOSSY: Know why you are a social entrepreneur. Have a vision and a goal and pursue it without paying attention to any negativities.

The post Diary Of An Under 30 CEO: Using Social Enterprise To Save An Educational System appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

When asked about his thought on the book during a Q&A session on Tuesday at the University of New South Wales, the Microsoft co-founder said the author “didn’t know much about aid and what it was doing” in Africa, adding that such books promote evil.

Moyo’s book Dead Aid explained why aid is not working in Africa and shed light on the possible solutions to economic prosperity.

She wrote on her blog: “I find it disappointing that Mr. Gates would not only conflate my arguments about structural aid with those about emergency or NGO aid, but also that he would then use this gross misrepresentation of my work to publicly attack my knowledge, background, and value system.”

The former Barrick Gold Director furthered: “I have dedicated many years to economic study up to the PhD level, to analyze and understand the inherent weaknesses of aid, and why aid policies have consistently failed to deliver on economic growth and poverty alleviation. To this, I add my experience working as a consultant at the World Bank, and being born and raised in Zambia, one of the poorest aid-recipients in the world. This first-hand knowledge and experience has highlighted for me the legacy of failures of aid, and provided me with a unique understanding of not only the failures of the aid system but also of the tools for what could bring African economic success.”

Moyo is an author of several books including: How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly – And the Stark Choices that Lie Ahead and Winner Take All: China’s Race for Resources and What It Means for the World and Dead Aid. In 2009, she was rated on Time 100 most influential person in the world list.

According to her, “Western aid had become like a drug to many African countries,giving them little incentive to develop industry since aid rather than tax was a more reliable source of government revenue.”

The post Dambisa Moyo Responds To Bill Gates’ Personal Attacks appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

We always believe there is a future in any business venture, especially when no one else believes in it. In African markets, the chicken business is largely recession-proof, and now Gideon Gono is taking aim at this market, as things are not yet that competitive at the top end of the spectrum.

At first glance, Gideon Gono, seems to be lurching about. And furthermore, on first sound his remarks seem to be mere hallucinations. It is easy to see why Gideon Gono wants to move into the African market, with chickens, you are looking at 35 to 36 days to get your returns. Despite how the economic downturn strikes at the heart of the continent, the commodity is never at risk of becoming a commodity with shrinking margins, chickens always defy financial recessions.

For those unaware, Gideon Gono is the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, who has amassed wealth, slowly and quietly. Even though he claims to have begun as a small-time chicken farmer in the 1970s, it’s only now that his Lunar Chickens project has virtually become something of substance. Gono is not new to business, as his other notable foray into the flower export business was halted by the imposition of a Western embargo on him, and he now runs Lunar Chickens from the site he used to produce his flowers.

The general public will always greet his steady wealth accumulation with scepticism, however, for the wise entrepreneurs, the moral of the flower story is that once there is an insurmountable impediment right in front of you, it is wrong to lose determination to create wealth, just create another income stream for yourself. Even in desperate times, always have a knack for reinventing yourself and your business empire.

Vision and Future

For the umpteenth time, let us remind ourselves as entrepreneurs, that to be successful we should never tire of being excited about our vision and future, and Gono is too excited about his future as a possible chicken magnate. “By 2020, I must be the first chicken billionaire in Africa,” he has boldly declared.

Still, it would be wrong to underestimate the power of having several different visions for your business as an aid to steady continental growth, or the strength and determination to make those visions a success. According to Gono, he has a Zimbabwe vision, a SADC vision, a COMESA vision, and not to be forgotten an African vision.

“Within those visions is a desire to see Africa being self-sufficient in terms of its food production,” he stated as a matter of fact. “I have chosen to focus on the chicken side of food and the situation at the moment is that Zimbabwe consumes on average between 5 000 and 5 800 tonnes of chicken per month. Now local suppliers are only producing 2 000 tonnes per month and the rest is being imported,” he added.

Well, up to a point, in your relentless pursuit for entrepreneurial success, you should always have your vision tied to the reality on the ground. Pursuing business ventures blind-fold, is the major reason for many disappointments suffered by most of our aspiring entrepreneurs right across the African continent. Do you know the numbers, which you need to, satisfy?

Competition and Empowering Others

“There are basically three major producers in Zimbabwe of which we are the second,” he said, in apparent reference to Irvines and Suncrest. “So we are hoping that with time, we are going to spread the production of chickens throughout the country. We would like everyone to get involved whether with a 100 chickens behind someone’s backyard, 500 chickens and so forth, we want to find meaning out of chicken,” he emphasized.

“I have always argued that if you want to empower people say through mining, tell them that they must wait for at least five years before they can get a return; this is for a small mining operation. If you want to invest say through tobacco growing, tell them to have patience, to wait for a year, they get their money, through maize, four, five months. But through chickens, you are looking at 35 to 36 days to get your returns. So we believe that we have got a formula for quickly empowering people in a manner which is also nice, chicken is nice when you eat it,” he added.

Gideon Gono also believes the rural areas need to be empowered, and he seeks to play a more inclusive dominant role, through allowing those in rural areas to partner him. “The way we hope those in rural areas will participate, we would concentrate on technology-related activities, grow the breeders, hatch the chicks, give them to look after, bring them to our slaughter facilities, and take it to the market. Once you begin doing chickens above 500 at a time, you can’t now slaughter them by hand, the traditional way,” he hastily stated.

Furthermore, the more business focussed rural farmers can also be more involved through feed meal facilities. Gono says, ”Where we make our own feed, we want to involve farmers in growing the inputs, the maize, the soya beans that goes into feed but right now the challenge; we didn’t grow enough maize in the country or soya. It kind of like militates against volumes that we would want to produce.”

The Business

Lunar Chickens is a chicken farming business, with highly-automated, large-scale chicken farming processing complexes that are driving the Zimbabwean chicken market. Through high technology, Lunar Chickens has witnessed skyrocketing business, and has managed to corner the market, aided by the attainment of the famed Halal certification. And moreover, because of the Halal certification, quality control is a priority at Lunar Chickens, since prevention is better than cure, such that elimination of the potential for disease-causing microorganisms is particularly a high alert task.

Lunar Chickens as a massive highly-automated operation is split into various units, that include the “Breeder-land”, “Meat-land”, and the “Slaughter-land”, where several processes are undertaken. Due to the highly-automated nature of the business, the only downside is that even with the meat-land having seven large houses that are holding 45 000 chickens each, only a small staff compliment can be involved.

The “Breeder-land”, is where the eggs are laid by the layers, and then taken into highly-automated chicken incubators where machines keep hundreds of eggs at a time warm. Due to the highly-automated nature of this process, it has enabled Lunar Chickens to commercially breed chicks, and the target is to produce one million eggs a day within the next year, just for domestic consumption, and then the vision is to capture the entire African market.

From the hatchery building, the eggs are collected from the coops and taken to incubate. The next process is called the setter stage, where the eggs are kept warm and periodically rotated by state-of-the-art machines for at least 18 days, whilst placed in large automated walk-in incubators. Before the eggs begin to hatch after 21 days, a process called candling, which is an X-ray process is done for 3 days on the eggs.

After hatching, the chicks are wheeled to an inoculation area, where they are sprayed with a vaccine against the common diseases. Afterwards, this is when the money starts rolling into the business, since some of the day-old chicks are bought by out-growers, and others are delivered to different markets by Lunar Chickens trucks.

Otherwise the rest of the chicks are taken to the “Meat-land,” these large grow-out houses are under controlled temperatures. Ultimately, without being too generous with praises, this is a hub of impressive instrumentation and control. For instance, each house has a floor covered with a dry bedding wood chips, whilst the chicks are automatically fed a diet of chicken feed and water, under special lighting to keep the birds calm.

After a full-cycle 36-day grow-out, the birds are taken to the “Slaughter-land”, this is where you will find automatic neck cutters, automatic feather pickers, washer which scrubs the outside body of the defeathered carcasses, and then the cleaned carcasses are immersed in a “chiller” of cooled, chlorinated water.

Interestingly, the internal temperature of the chicken must be brought down to -18C before any further processing. At the end of the slaughter process, that takes only about an hour, irrespective of the format, the meat is packaged by workers at the processing plant, and loaded into cases, and later stored in a temperature-controlled warehouse.

Like Gideon Gono says, “so chickens make business sense,” develop your own business strategy that makes business sense. A possible consequence of looking too much into the negative image portrayed by the media, is that we forget to pick the lessons to be learnt from the pacesetters setting the pace for us.

The post Diary Of An Under 30 CEO: Gideon Gono – First Chicken Billionaire In Africa? appeared first on Ventures Africa | .