Top Kenyan entrepreneurs set to soar higher
The renovated entrance to the Kenyatta International Convention Centre on July 20, 2015. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU |
What you need to know:
- Summit gives individuals who have excelled a chance to rub shoulders with visiting billionaires.
- Kenyans will have the rare opportunity to meet and pitch their ideas to top venture capitalists
Top Kenyan entrepreneurs are expected to reap big from the Global Entrepreneurship Summit.
Entrepreneurs expected to make their presence felt include individuals who have excelled in the fields of technology, agriculture, tourism and innovation, among others.
The summit will provide an opportunity for Kenyan entrepreneurs to rub shoulders with at least 20 billionaires from around the globe who were invited by President Barack Obama.
Kenyans will also have the rare opportunity to meet and pitch their ideas to top venture capitalists.
One such Kenyan is Mr Victor Nzomo, the co-founder and director of Intellectual Property Assets Consulting (Ipac).
The firm, a consultancy, provides a wide range of intellectual property-related professional services, including advice, training, registration, management and enforcement.
Mr Nzomo will sit on a panel with a top executive from Bill Gates’s Microsoft, Mr Antony Cook, to discuss intellectual capital.
He will also share a roundtable with Mr Isaac Rutenberg of Strathmore University.
Entrepreneur, activist and blogger Ory Okolloh will be in a session chaired by business mogul Randall Kempner of Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs.
The session will discuss the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Ms Okolloh is the founder of Ushahidi, a Kenyan-born online platform that has won recognition around the world as a user-generated response centre.
It started by mapping hotspots during the 2007-2008 post-election violence, and since then, has been mapping blizzards and hurricanes in the US, typhoons and earthquakes in Haiti, the Philippines and Asia, and turmoil in eastern Europe.
Ms Okolloh is also a founder of Mashada.com, a pioneering Kenyan Internet chat site.
She has worked as a senior executive with Google and is currently the director of investments at Omidyar Networks, a venture capital firm.
Another top Kenyan entrepreneur attending the summit is Mr Kamau Kuria of Ecotact, a firm that develops innovative answers to growing urban environmental challenges in Africa and globally. Founded in 2006, Ecotact is known for the Iko-Toilet.
During an address to the nation on President Obama’s tour on Tuesday, President Uhuru Kenyatta said Kenya’s reputation for innovation and enterprise is fully deserved.
“It is our habit to take risks in the hope of bettering ourselves and our country. That is what led many of our young men and women to go to the US even before independence,” he said.
President Kenyatta said top Kenyan entrepreneurs such as Mr Kennedy Odede, founder of the Shining Hope for Communities (Shofco) movement founded in Kibera as a grassroots organisation, and Dr Simon Gicharu of Mount Kenya University, are among those who have shown a true spirit of entrepreneurship.
While working at a factory in 2004, Mr Odede saved his meagre salary and bought a soccer ball and started Shofco.
Dr Gicharu, who built Mount Kenya University from scratch, has won local and international awards, including this year’s Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year. He is also the chairman of the Rural and Electrification Authority Board.
