Universities warm up to business incubation concept
The main hallway leads to a corridor and an open plan office surrounded by conference halls. A group of students are hunched over their laptops as they punch away at the keys.
We are at the Safaricom Academy Centre, snuggled at the Strathmore Business School. The hub, we are told, is the dynamo for innovative ideas among students.
John Matogo, the manager of iBizAfrica, a business incubation facility, introduces Diana Martha, a third year student at Strathmore. Ms Martha is a co-founder of Purpink Gifts, an online shop which deals with bespoke gift products.
How does it work? Together with her partner Bett Ayrton, a student too, they have tapped into the magic of simple innovation to drive their business.
“We started with a paltry Sh359 and bought a pendant whose pictures we posted on our Facebook fan page,” Mr Ayrton told the Business Daily. “We accompanied it with descriptions including the material, cost and the right occasion for the gift.”
He says that what started as trial-and-error has seen them sell over 500 accessories, fetching them a fortune.
Purpink has even recruited services of courier firms such as Aramex and DHL in delivery of products outside Nairobi and the country respectively. All the transactions, he says, are conducted on the social media platform.
The duo is currently designing its website, set to be ready by next week. We then meet Tony Kuchio of Buymore, a prepaid card that harvests discounts for college students. He explains that the card seeks to make the lives of cash-strapped students easier when shopping.
Mr Kuchio is in talks with retail shops and expects to complete designing his website next week.
These are the scenes playing out in Kenyan colleges today with young innovators aligning themselves to global business dynamics.
In light of the ever rising unemployment levels in the country, currently standing at 40 per cent and 70 per cent among the youth, the need for innovation has grown manifold. Young people are slowly shifting focus from formal employment and instead taking the journey down the entrepreneurial path.
A key feature is that all these innovations are grounded in modern technology, with most tapping into the growing telecom sector. Experts have lauded universities for setting up incubation centres which serve as foundations for cultivating entrepreneurship among students.
“The emerging pattern among universities providing launching pads for budding entrepreneurs could help halve unemployment in the country,” Mr Kwame Owino, the CEO of the Institute of Economic Affairs CEO, told the Business Daily earlier.
Incubation programmes aim at empowering students to be self-employed. In this regard, many universities have invested heavily in the incubation concept. To begin with, Strathmore has invested over Sh10 million in the construction of a new incubation centre which will accommodate up to 50 students.
The hub, one of its kind in the country, comes with offices for business process outsourcing (BPOs), mentorship in entrepreneurship, and consultation services. Kenyatta University is set to launch its Chandaria Business Innovation and Incubation Centre on May 17.
The complex, constructed to the tune of Sh100 million, according to Florence Maina who is in charge of University-Industry Partnerships, is supported by the Chandaria Foundation.
Under the programme, 100 innovations will receive support in terms of training and resources every year with 70 per cent of these reserved for Kenyatta University students.
The ultra-modern facility is meant to ignite an entrepreneurial spirit among students through provision of seed capital and business network contacts.
The University of Nairobi boasts of the AfriLab centre which was set up in 2011 and aims at creating new technological products by students. On the other hand, Mount Kenya University School of Business invested Sh4 million in an incubation programme in 2011.
According to a report by the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), incubation programmes can play an integral role in bridging the gap between knowledge acquired in school and entrepreneurial skills.
