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Sunday, July 26, 2015

stealing africa OR
Afirica's Entrepreneurial Youth and Women- Obama Kenya Visit Summary
Are there any urgent ways to amplify this conversation through hubs 1 2 and open learning channels 1.. 2
thanks chris macrae  www.economistafrica.com mobile 240 316 8157

Remarks by President Obama at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/25/remarks-president-obama-global-entrepreneurship-summit

Young people like you are harnessing technology to change the way Africa is doing business, as President Kenyatta alluded to.  And that creates incredible opportunities for Africans and for the world.  It means more growth and trade that creates   jobs in all our countries.  It's good for all of us.  This   continent needs to be a future hub of global growth, not just African growth.  (Applause.)  
And the country that's hosting us today is setting an important example -- Kenya is leading the way.  (Applause.)    Today, Kenya is the largest economy in East Africa.  High-speed broadband and mobile connectivity are on the rise, unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit of even more Kenyans.  Every day around the world, millions of people send and save money with M-Pesa -- and it's a great idea that started here in Kenya.  (Applause.)   
From Zimbabwe to Bangladesh, citizens work to keep elections safe, using the crowdsourcing platform Ushahidi -- and that’s a great idea that started right here in Kenya.  (Applause.)  Here in Nairobi, startup incubators are nurturing new businesses every day -- maybe some of yours -- each with the potential to be the great next Kenyan innovation.  
And the good news is that I’m not the only one who sees the promise of Africa.  I’m joined on this trip by some leaders not just across my administration, but I'm also joined by 20 members of the United States Congress from both parties -- because supporting a strong partnership with Africa is something that unites Americans.  (Applause.)  We've got some incredible entrepreneurs and business leaders who are well-established from the United States who are with us.  They see the promise, as well.  And they’re putting their money where their mouth is. 
So today, we’re taking the next steps to partner with you.  First, we’re offering entrepreneurs more startup capital.  At last year’s Entrepreneurship Summit, we set a goal of generating $1 billion in new investment for emerging entrepreneurs around the world, with half the money going to support women and young people.  (Applause.)  A few months ago, I challenged governments, companies, organizations and individuals to help us reach this target.  Today, I am proud to announce that not only   did we make our goal, we surpassed it.  (Applause.)  We’ve secured more than $1 billion in new commitments from banks, foundations, philanthropists, all to support entrepreneurs like you.

 

Everywhere I go, across the United States and around the world, I hear from people, but especially young people, who are ready to start something of their own -- to lift up people’s lives and shape their own destinies.  And that’s entrepreneurship.  Entrepreneurship creates new jobs and new businesses, new ways to deliver basic services, new ways of seeing the world -- it’s the spark of prosperity.  It helps citizens stand up for their rights and push back against corruption.  Entrepreneurship offers a positive alternative to the ideologies of violence and division that can all too often fill the void when young people don’t see a future for themselves.  
Entrepreneurship means ownership and self-determination, as opposed to simply being dependent on somebody else for your livelihood and your future.  Entrepreneurship brings down barriers between communities and cultures and builds bridges that help us take on common challenges together.  Because one thing that entrepreneurs understand is, is that you don't have to look a certain way, or be of a certain faith, or have a certain last name in order to have a good idea.        
The challenge is -- as so many of you know -- it’s very often hard to take those first steps.  It’s hard to access capital.  It’s hard sometimes to get the training and the skills to run a business as professionally as it needs to be in this competitive world.  It’s hard to tap into the networks and mentors that can mean the difference between a venture taking off and one that falls flat.  
And it’s even harder for women and young people and communities that have often been marginalized and denied access to opportunities.  You run into old attitudes that say some people, because of where you come from or what you look like, don’t have what it takes to lead or create a business.  And sometimes it's subtle.  You go into pitch an idea and maybe the response you get might not be as enthusiastic as if someone else pitched the exact same idea.  Sometimes women or folks from communities that historically have not been viewed as entrepreneurial may not have the means of opening those doors just to get in front of the right person.  
Of course, the best answer to that kind of thinking is the example that all of you are setting -- your success.  And that’s why I’ve made encouraging this spirit of entrepreneurship a key part of America’s engagement in the world.  I launched the first of these summits in Washington five years ago.  And since then, we’ve helped empower hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, giving them a boost to launch thousands of new businesses and initiatives.  Here in Africa, our Young African Leaders Initiative is empowering tens of thousands of dynamic leaders not only in business, but also in government and civil society.  Because one of the things that we have come to understand -- and this is particularly relevant to Africa -- is that in order to create successful entrepreneurs, the government also has a role in creating the transparency, and the rule of law, and the ease of doing business, and the anti-corruption agenda that creates a platform for people to succeed.
So this is our first Global Entrepreneurship Summit in sub-Saharan Africa.  We wanted to come here.  I wanted to be here because Africa is on the move.  (

 

IHUB and USHAHIDI

(An EcnomistAfrica report for World Record Book of Jobs Creation)

Youth entrepreneurs and their investors who openly partner Kenya's IHUB  1 2 stand out in terms of exponential impact analysis conducted for the Good Hubs Guide since 2006. After the top down failures and tragedies (eg 7/7) of London's 2005 Year of Make Poverty History and its Commission for Africa, pro-youth economists started  tracking hub movements. London had contributed an early manifestation of hubsworld with what was first named Islington's the-hub.net.


Kenya's Ihub emerged 2008 at the same time as Ushahidi rapidly became Kenya's largest open software business. Hubs can provide emotionally energising space and networking goodwill for youth entrepreneurs to conceive, incubate, collaborate and attract youth-webbed (eg kiva, or crowd-investing),  patient (eg acumen) or sustainability investors. They also open job creation doors in ways that universities and old schooling systems fail to do wherever academia orders examinations and paper certificates as a human's final exit to learning and doing.

Economistwomen.com : For those who value the pre-digital womens' hubs architecture of Bangladeshi microcredit, there is a direct line through Kenya's other world class mobile innovations for millennials sustainability, and Africa's social-economic future: Jamii Bora (from 1999), MPESA (from 2007), Nanocredit, and Table Banking as Africa's gamechanging contribution to social credit partnerships of Women4Empowerment

Saturday, July 25, 2015




Munro, Ingrid
Jamii Bora
B
w4e AFm
How the epicentre of banking for the poor moved from Bangladesh to Kenya , and back again/

Jamii Bora was the world's first major microcredit to be launched with digital -mobile record-keeping. The arrival in Nairobi of the greatest banking model for ending slums in 1999 was pivotal to what became the decade that kenya became a world leader in mobile bankng (mpesa) and then  the leading lab for MobileWomen4Empowerment and Ihub youth open tech wizards networking. Ingrid was and is a lifetime friend of Muhammad Yunus. She was the one who did most to ensure that financial regulators in Kenya kept the doors open for banking for the poor. She extended thegreenchildrens pop videos celebrations of microcredit from Bangladesh to Kenya -more than 5 years ahead of dban becming apple's and One's ambassador with a notable campaign to  reinvest in Africa-wide food security and making agricultural entrepreneurs sexy as well as valued financially.

Curiouser and Curiouser- From 1996 Mobile Village phones gamechanged the world's partnering possibilities for the poorest out of bangladesh with grameen phone thanks in large part to the quadir family who also run the legatum entrepreneur school at MIT. The tech wizard behind Kenya's Mpesa now works closely with the quadirs who have brought the world leading cashless model back to Bangladesh brac's bkash.org. Furthermore Naila Chowdhury for over 15 yeras Muhammad Yunus' first female director of Grameen Phone left Dhaka to settle her US family in 2012 - her first worldwide partnership exchanged her asian mobile owners goodwill contact list with kenya's founder of nanocredit so that Naila's could bring Nanocredit t the Americas. She has since helped Kenya rapidly amplily Kenya's table banking and social credit models which blend kiva-type mapping with first ladies development missions  - now the fastest growing womens livelihoods model the world can celebrate




model innovations of jamii bora:
first to capture all record keeping on mobile

first model targeting youth in slums as well as mothers- made one-off offers to whole gangs of youth- eg thise who looted kibera market - lets rebuild it and you can be the security guards

almost all employees were former members during first 10 years of growth

innovated ladder model- prove you can earn something and then you can take loan doubling your earnings

developed some mass work schemes including buildiing ecovillage kaputei

identified early that due to large families (with someone at health risk) health insurance needed for all members families- bought massive contract with missionary hospitals -ultimatley one of the most efficient health insurances plans ever purchased

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

july 7 is provisionally DC's african free university day of exchange-queries welcome chris macrae 240 316 8157
Dr Taddy Blecher BIO
Dr Taddy Blecher is the Chairman of the SA National Government task team on Entrepreneurship & Job Creation in the Human Resource Development Council of South Africa, as well as the CEO of the Community and Individual Development Association, the Maharishi Institute and the broad-based Black Economic Empowerment fund: Community & Individual Development Trust.
In his national entrepreneurship role for South Africa Taddy has achieved:
1.      Entrepreneurship will be included in the curriculum for every child from Grade 1 to Grade 12 in all provinces of South Africa.  Over 12 million young South Africans will learn about this critical field of economic opportunity in theory and in practice on an annual basis
2.      Entrepreneurship education will be included for one million youth per year going through the technical and vocational College system
3.      A new national portal for entrepreneurship is being developed under the Department of Trade and Industry, and a national virtual incubator to reach any number of small businesses through internet-enabled mobile devices is being built. This includes:
a.      Free website initiative together with Google, that has assisted 65,000 South African firms to have a website
b.      Free MBA, BBA, PDM, and Certificate in Management, including all books, curriculum, video lectures, manuals, mock exams, etc, that has been accessed by 500,000 South Africans
c.      A financing tool accessible my mobile phone to assist every business to gain access to public or private sector financing
4.      A new national Council on Entrepreneurship is being created (alongside the new Small Business Development Ministry)
Dr Blecher co-founded the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship with Sir Richard Branson, where over 4,500 individuals have been trained and assisted with building businesses. The Branson Centre based on the success in South Africa, has been replicated in Jamaica and in the UK.
Taddy is known as a pioneer of the free tertiary education movement in South Africa, having helped to create six free access institutions of higher learning out of nothing, as well as inspiring the creation of three other institutions. He also serves on the British Government Task Team for the reinvention of higher education and skills development, as well as the Italian Government – South African Government business chamber board.
He has raised over R500 million in cash, property and equity to support free access to post-secondary school education. As a result, over 14,250 unemployed South Africans have been educated, found employment and moved from poverty to the middle-class. These formerly unemployed youth now have combined salaries in excess of R700 million p.a. and expected life-time earnings of R17 billion. Over 600 000 young South Africans in schools have been reached with one-week education and life-skills training courses.
Taddy is consistently working on developing sustainable means to help unemployed youth in South Africa gain access to transferable skills through education, training, jobs, entrepreneurship, and careers, thereby breaking the poverty cycle.
Dr Blecher has been honoured with a number of awards, including: the 2002 World Economic Forum "Global Leader of Tomorrow" award, a 2005 World Economic Forum "Young Global Leader of the World", a Skoll Global Social Entrepreneur winning a $1 million prize for his work, an Ashoka Fellowship, and has been honoured with two honorary doctorates.  In 2009 he was named by author Tom Peters as one of his top 5 most influential entrepreneurs in the world over the last 30 years.
A qualified actuary and management consultant, Dr Blecher is passionate about the approach of Consciousness-Based Education, a system of education developing the full potential of every student. This has led the Maharishi Institute to winning the first prize in a global competition to find the most innovative education initiative in the world in October 2010.