When he was selected to travel to the United States (US) to take part in the second edition of the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI), otherwise known as The Mandela Washington Fellowship, Jean Bosco Nzeyimana knew that the sky was the limit for him.
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Last year, US President Barack Obama’s Mandela Washington Fellowship invited 500 of Africa’s brightest minds to learn new skills and see innovative entrepreneurial trends. For Nzeyimana it was invaluable.
Having grown up in the rural village of Gikongoro, in the Nyamagabe District of Rwanda’s Southern Province, from parents of humble origins, Nzeyimana’s journey to the top was out of the ordinary; especially when you consider he used trash to get there. Garbage is Nzeyimana’s calling.
In August last year, Nzeyimana met Obama, and other US state department officials, in Washington DC immediately after the US president visited Kenya to host the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi.
A few months later, Nzeyimana presented his business ideas at St James’s Palace, in London, at an African business event called Pitch@Palace in the presence of Prince Andrew. This event, which Nzeyimana says changed his perspective on green business, takes place twice a year and involves more than 300 CEOs, angel investors, mentors and the event’s business partners.
Nzeyimana became an entrepreneur in challenging circumstances. His neighborhood was gripped by poverty and poor sanitation bedevilled the community.
Firewood was used to cook every day. This was problematic as finding wood was daunting and burning it led to health problems. Nzeyimana felt a need to do something about it.
“I needed to be part of a sustainable solution to address lack of power and affordable sanitation and to fight poverty at my rural village in Kitabi, in Gikongoro. My solution was to try composting trash into cleaner cooking fuel and, if possible, to produce other green products too,” he says.
This led to Nzeyimana starting Habona Ltd, a company that produces 20 tons of briquettes per month, in 2013. He did when he was barely 18 and still studying at the University of Rwanda’s College of Business and Economics. Habona currently employs more than 100 people.
“I studied business administration because I needed to lead a private enterprise that could solve myriad problems that my folks faced, especially hygiene and lack of fuel,” says Nzeyimana.
While at college, he researched how waste could be turned into green products, such as biogas, compost or briquettes. He was particularly interested in new approaches that could displace firewood or help his parents access cleaner and cheaper fuels during the rainy season, when access to firewood – the primary source of cooking – was more difficult.
With time, the knowledge he acquired from university helped him to draw up a comprehensive business plan for his project.
With barely any capital, Nzeyimana formed a small team to set up waste collection points in Nyamagabe town. The team gathered waste from people’s homes and hired vehicles to transport them to a central processing point.
Here the waste is categorized and the degradable materials are processed into manure, briquettes and biogas, while the non-degradable are turned into ornaments or sold for further recycling.
“You don’t need money to start off successfully,” he says. “A lack of funds did not discourage us in any way. Instead we needed to think out of the box in order to raise capital to enable our idea to take shape.”
When the African Innovation Prize, a continental business competition for start-ups called for entries in 2014, Nzeyimana entered and won, receiving Rwf2 million ($2,700) in valuable capital for Habona.
Nzeyimana also scooped the 2014 Young Innovator Award in Rwanda and was among 10 Africans who participated in training in New Delhi, India, on running a start-up.
By August last year, while attending the YALI fellowship, Habona was granted around $25,000 from the United States African Development Foundation(USADF)  to support Nzeyimana’s waste project.
“The grant will boost our capacity substantially going forward. We intend to employ 10 more workers and increase our briquette making capacity from 20 tons to 50 tons per month,” he says.
Habona sells a kilogram of briquettes for Rwf200 (around $0.30) to people fighting the vicious circle of poverty in Nzeyimana’s rural village.
“There is more value in that the briquettes last three times longer than charcoal of the same cost. This is not only cost effective, but is environmentally sustainable.”
Nzeyimana’s experiences in the US and Britain have led to bigger and bolder ideas.
Since his fellowship in the US, Habona has scaled up its capacity in renewable energy management. Consequently, the company was contracted to run an integrated waste management plant owned by the Nyamagabe District authorities.
At St James’s Palace, Nzeyimana learned to introduce a broader vision of his business.
“I came back charged and armed with a better vision of the potential of my abilities, including where I want to be by the end of 2016.”
The event opened his eyes to the big world of green business.
“I am in the process of setting up an office in Kigali. As an entrepreneur, it is important to spread my wings. My company is in talks with a group of local, regional and international investors to set up something with the same business model, but very huge in Kigali while expanding our operations in Nyamagabe.”
Support for Habona is flooding in.
Nyamagabe District’s Deputy Mayor for Finance and Economic Development, Immaculée Mukarwego, is a firm supporter of the company.
“The project started by Habona Ltd is very good, with a very bright future as it seeks to deal with the issue of waste in a sustainable manner and, in the process, it has a high potential of improving the overall wellbeing of the entire district,” says Mukarwego.
As part of the district’s long-term plans, a plant and dumping post was built at a cost of more than $500,000 to help Habona to increase its activities.
It’s a good start for a rural village boy who started off with nothing but an ambitious dream to fight poverty.

One Man’s Trash  Is Another Man’s  Treasure

In my travels, I have come to understand that as women of African descent, whether you are in England, Brazil, St. Maarten, South Africa or in the United States, we face many of the same challenges. Most of us are dealing with unrealistic European standards of beauty imposed upon us from the time we are born. This, combined with the expectations of our parents and community, leaves us feeling like we always have something to prove.
This used to be me. Born in Uganda, my upbringing as an African in America shaped my sense of identity and self-worth. My ‘Africanness’ in a world where light skin and long, straight hair were preferred, was almost taboo.
In elementary school, I detested my first name, Julian, because in America, it was considered a boy’s name. To add what I thought was insult to injury, my last name, Kiganda, was extremely difficult for Americans to pronounce. So it was butchered often. Because my mother kept mine and my four sisters’ hair short, I was asked more than once by students at school if I was a boy or a girl. Beauty and success to me were not synonymous with being African.
Two major turning points in my life happened to flip this erroneous belief on its head. The first was the opportunity to travel the United States (US) as a member of an all-women’s East African performing arts group called Kayaga of Africa. Showcasing our culture on stages where many in the audience still had a very backward view of Africa was both empowering and life-changing. As American audiences showed appreciation for the beauty and diversity of my culture, so did I.
But I still struggled to reconcile who I was to who I thought I was supposed to be. Then in 2006, my firm won a bid to design an African American slavery museum in Alexandria, Virginia, US. It was a project which would completely change my perspective of African Americans. In public school, very little is taught about slavery or African American history in general. So my real introduction to black history came as a result of designing this museum.
I began to understand how Africans were forced to give up their languages, their identities, and their names to take on that of their white slave owners. The atrocities Africans in America suffered were indescribable. That’s when I began to understand my role in bridging the divide between Africa and her diaspora.
Since designing that museum, my work as an artist, author, community activist, teacher and entrepreneur has revolved around bridging the two cultures which have played integral roles in shaping who I am today: a black woman who is proud of my African roots, and comfortable defining beauty and success for myself. I use every opportunity I can to educate my brothers and sisters on both sides of the Atlantic on the fact that we are more alike than we are different: history and current circumstances speak to that.
As an old African proverb states: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, gotogether.”
We need to build bridges that will bring greater collaboration, cultural exchange and opportunity. I believe women play a key role in building those bridges. Thankfully, I’m not the only one.
On a recent trip to Johannesburg in South Africa, while being driven around the city by a Malawian Uber driver, I asked him what he thought of Joyce Banda, his country&#8217;s immediate past president and second female head of state in Africa. His answer pleasantly surprised me:
“I think she did a good job. We would have a better world if we had more women as presidents. There is something that God put in women which we men don’t have. Women are multi-taskers and considerate. If you think about it, we live in the wombs of our mothers for nine months. If they can take care of an entire family, they can take care of an entire country.”
You may not aspire to be the next president of your country, but as a woman, you are uniquely equipped to succeed. Just remember, part of your success depends on your willingness to accept and embrace who you are: in all your Africanness. Understand your true value. Don’t be afraid to challenge the status quo. Instead, blaze your own trail and define success for yourself.
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– The writer is based in Washington DC and is founder and CEO of Bold &amp; Fearless, a lifestyle brand and online magazine for professional women of Africa and the diaspora.

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Bridging  The Divide  As An African In America

The relationship between an athlete and a coach can be complicated. It involves a personal bond but on a professional basis. Everything we’ve been told about mixing business and pleasure goes out the window. It requires responsibility from both sides and takes time to develop. Throughout my sporting career, I have had a close relationship with my coaches but there was a time when I regretted rushing into it.
I moved to Europe from the United States to join a new coach, one who I had only met on a few occasions. I was taken by the advice he offered me during a competition. I was already a successful swimmer and had the medals to show for it, but to remain successful, I needed something to change. So, when presented with his subsequent proposal and promise, I grabbed what I thought was an exciting opportunity.
Two weeks later, I realized I had not done my homework. The situation I had got myself into was not what I had expected. I was an elite athlete with three Olympic Games behind me, seven Olympic medals, multiple world records and my new coach was a junior level club coach with little international experience. I found it difficult to communicate with both him and his ego. Ego can be confused with confidence; it will stunt your growth because you fail to listen to others. This became a detriment to our partnership.
I tried making it work by following his program and quietly focusing on my individual desperation to succeed. It was too late and I started feeling what I had only ever seen others endure. For the first time, a lack of confidence had become my problem. As my confidence continued to cascade, so too did my passion in swimming. I was no longer swimming for the enjoyment of the sport; I was swimming because I thought I had nothing else. Perhaps change was not what I was after. The tipping point came during a competition when my coach’s temper burst into a dramatic fit of tantrums, in front of all the other athletes and coaches. My embarrassment and anger at him, and at myself for letting this happen, gave me the courage I needed to finally make the right decision.
Within a day, I had moved countries and flown back to my coaches in the United States. Now I knew what I wanted and I was anxious to get my confidence back. I had trained under Kim Brackin and David Marsh for a long time and we share a good relationship because they know me as a person, not just an athlete. This is essential for understanding what can affect an athlete outside of sport because of the impact it can have on training.
Their experience also matched the level of training and competition I required. This kind of platform enables us to balance expectations and hold each other accountable to our goals. I was no longer open to change but the necessity for it was confirmed when my coaches provided it for me. It came in the form of a team.
A team is not just a group of individuals with a common purpose. It is a group of passionate individuals with different strengths that help improve the weaknesses in each other to achieve a common goal. The team is made successful by good leadership. A good coach, like a good leader, is always learning, open to ideas and constantly searching for the most effective and efficient methods for improvement. This makes them willing to change, willing to evolve and, if properly communicated with the athlete, evolve together.
To successfully evolve together, the relationship between an athlete and a coach has seven elements: trust, experience, communication, accountability, passion, patience and time. For the magic to work, there is an eighth element that binds it all together – respect. It is vital that these components come from both the coach and the athlete and for that to happen both must earn each other’s respect.
The coach has to take the lead and, as the relationship progresses, a partnership will begin to emerge. A good coach not only prepares you for sport but they prepare you for life. They provide challenges that make for a better athlete and guidance in dealing with those challenges that make for a better person.

Behind Every Great Athlete  Is A Great Coach

Many would walk past him without a second glance. But this unassuming man, in a brown jacket and faded jeans, is the man who brought up a billionaire in Africa. This is Errol Musk, father to Elon – the $13.3-billion United States entrepreneur who founded PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and wants to go to Mars. Eroll’s son, Kimbal, is a millionaire and his daughter, Tasko, is a film producer.
“They’ve been doing well all their lives. It’s not like one suddenly jumps into it right now. It’s been like that as far as I can remember. [Elon’s] sister Tasko would say you can ask Elon to do a lot of things on his computer but don’t ask him to catch a bus. We traveled a lot in those days, their mother and I split up when they were quite young and the kids stayed with me. I took them all over the world. Elon was generally in the backseat, Kimbal, my other son who is just as energetic as Elon, would do all the guiding and navigating,” says Errol.
“Elon has always been an introvert thinker, so where a lot of people would go to a great party and have a great time and drink and talk about all sorts of things like rugby or sport, you would find Elon had found the person’s library and was going through their books. He’d find fun in that, not to say he wasn’t a person who would party every now and then.”
“The kind of things he would come up with as a youngster was always surprising. When he was very small, he would ask me ‘where is the whole world?’ when he was three or four. It was these sorts of questions that made me realize that he was a little different,” says Errol in an interview on radio station 702, in Johannesburg.
The Musk family is full of adventurers. Errol’s grandmother was Canada’s first chiropractor. His father and mother were the first to fly from South Africa to Australia in a single-engine plane. Errol, a pilot, sailor and engineer, raised Elon and Kimbal in the quiet suburbs of Pretoria.
Elon’s siblings also share the limelight. Toska is a producer and director. Kimbal owns a number of restaurant chains and spearheads a non-profit school education based program, The Kitchen Community, which grows vegetables in the United States.
“Kimbal is much more of a party animal. He is one of the two original directors of SpaceX and he’s a director of Tesla… But he’s in his own world [and has] gone into restaurants and catering. He has a number of very large restaurants. He is also part of one of the fastest growing fast foods spaces called Chipotle Mexican Grill.”
“Kimbal started a thing where he put fiberglass tubes in a snakelike shape to make a garden and taught children to grow vegetables… an article on FORBES said he was the Musk who is going to change how we eat.”
It’s a story that dates back to the 1980s in Pretoria. Errol made money by consulting and developing properties while the boys scribbled away at their desks at Pretoria Boys High School (PBHS).
“My impression is that Elon kept to himself and was relatively quiet and reserved. I believe he was involved with the computer club at school, but otherwise was not really visible in mainstream activities,” says Gavin Ehlers who was headboy at PBHS in 1988, the same year Musk finished school.
Not surprisingly, Elon graduated with distinctions in physical science and computer science, recalls Bill Schroder, the headmaster of the school from 1990 to 2009. Elon and Kimbal then emigrated to Canada with their mother, Maye, in part to avoid conscription in the South African army, before taking the plunge as entrepreneurs in the United States.
“In the mid-eighties I remember him showing me a box with a red light on it and he would say this is a modem. With this, computers can talk to one another. If that computer is on the line then I can talk to a computer in England and ask it questions. He was always switched on,” says Errol.
So what lies ahead for the billionaire Elon who wants to go to Mars?
On the cards is a possible return to Africa to install thousands of Tesla Powerwalls, a 15-centimeter sized battery box that can store up to 10kWh of free, cheap renewable energy for your house.. This is enough energy to keep your fridge cold for 600 hours, according to Eskom, South Africa’s national power utility, and could solve the country’s energy problems.
“As far as Elon is concerned, I worry, what now? What is there? I start to worry of boredom. I get worried that he is getting bored of sending stuff to NASA every week or two weeks. I mean this is becoming passé… He is one of those people, and certainly was as a boy, if he suddenly decides it’s not interesting anymore he just kind of drops it. I doubt he will though,” says Errol.
From Pretoria to the stars, Elon could go to Mars.

How To Raise A Family Of Genius Billionaires

The excitement has been building for months. On July 23, Air Force One – the official United States (US) presidential aircraft – will land at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.
Across Kenya, the visit of US President Barack Obama is the talk of the town. In Nairobi, enterprising vendors are already producing t-shirts with the words Karibu Nyumbani printed on them. It means welcome home.
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Obama’s vist to Kenya is iconic. He will not only be visiting a friendly nation, he is visiting his father’s homeland. Barack Hussein Obama Sr was a Kenyan who moved to the US in the 1950s to study. The current US president was born in Hawaii in 1961.
His last visit to Nairobi was in 2006 as a senator. Government officials then described him as a junior senator when he called for action against rampant graft in Kenya.
During his upcoming visit, Obama will attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), which he will co-host. It will be his first trip to Kenya as president. He has previously visited Ghana, Egypt, Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa.
Launched by Obama in 2009, GES will see more than 1,000 entrepreneurs and investors showcase innovative projects, exchange ideas and create economic opportunities.
While in the country, Obama will meet with Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta. Setting the stage for this meeting was the two-day visit to Nairobi by US Secretary of State, John Kerry.
The Uhuru-Kerry talks revolved around trade between the two nations and terrorism. The US has pledged to support Kenya’s fight against terrorism, which is a thorn in east Africa’s side and promised $100 million to aid the cause.
“There can be no question that our meetings here today were timely. Events in Kenya and the broader region present us with a broad array of tests. The threat posed by violent extremism is regrettably foremost among them,” said Kerry after meeting with Kenyatta.
Whether Obama, who is in his final term as US President, would visit his father’s homeland had been hotly debated. Since being elected in 2008, Obama has been non-committal on the matter.
This was further complicated by the 2013 elections in Kenya that saw President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto take office. At the time, the two faced charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague in the Netherlands.
It was only at the funeral service of Nelson Mandela in South Africa that Obama first met Kenyatta face to face. A photo of the two shaking hands at the FNB Stadium spread rapidly on social media.  The case against Kenyatta has since been dropped at the ICC. Ruto is, however, still on trial.
Most link this decision by the ICC to Obama finally ‘coming home’. Interestingly, Kerry met Kenyatta in the absence of his deputy. Kenyatta and Ruto have in the past met dignitaries as a team.
Unlike his previous visits to Kenya, Obama’s next trip will be marked with fanfare and splendour. Obama visited Kenya in 1988, then 1991, when he brought ‘home’ his then fiancé and now wife Michelle, and 2006.
There is still uncertainty over Obama taking time off to visit his extended family in the western parts of Kenya. Nevertheless, his late father’s homestead is a hive of activity. The national government and devolved government are working round the clock. Among other things, Barrack Hussein Obama Sr’s grave is being spruced up, just in case the president makes the all-important pilgrimage.
“We are trying to speak to the US Embassy in Nairobi as well as the national government to have President Obama visit Kisumu and hold a public lecture in this region,” says Governor of Kisumu County, Jack Ranguma.
Analysts hope that Obama’s visit will revive Kenya’s tourism industry. A number of western nations which are key source of tourists have labelled the country unsafe.
“This is a strong message to other nations that Kenya is not as insecure as we have been labelled. This visit by Obama is crucial to us in the tourism sector,” says Agatha Juma, the CEO Kenya Tourism Federation.
On the streets however, Kenyans are just happy that one of their sons, who is also the president of the most powerful nation in the world, is returning home.

Africa Welcomes A Famous Son

Joyce Banda is wearing a cheerful fuchsia-pink chitenge (Malawian dress), but looks tired.
We meet her in a Johannesburg hotel, where she has been staying on the return leg of her six-week trip – the longest she has been away from Africa – to the United States (US).
“The last few weeks have been hectic,” says Banda, Malawi’s former president and Africa’s second female head of state.
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In the US, she had been rubbing shoulders with Hillary Clinton and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, garnering support for the Joyce Banda Foundation, which she has been running on behalf of women and children in Malawi for the last 16 years. In Johannesburg, she also met with Graça Machel, wife of the late Nelson Mandela, to discuss a maternal and child health program.
Back home, it was an equally hectic few months. In a year Malawi is celebrating 50 years of independence, the international press scrutinized it over a high-level graft scandal and chaotic elections.
Banda left Malawi a month after her country’s closely-contested – and controversial – May elections, which saw her and her People’s Party lose to Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Banda was president of the tiny aid-dependent southern African country – among the world’s poorest – for a brief two years, following the death in office of her predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika, the brother of the new president.
“I came into office at a very difficult time. The economy had almost collapsed, but in 24 months, I was able to turn [it] around,” says Banda.
Banda says Malawi’s economy grew from 1.8% in 2012 to 6.2% in 2014. She started well, winning accolades from the West for her economic reform plan and austerity measures, including the IMF-backed devaluation of the kwacha.
“What gives me pride is I left Malawi a better place than when I found it. When I came… we didn’t have fuel for a day, companies were scaling down… I had to work very quickly… By the time I was leaving statehouse, we had a harvest of 3.9 million metric tons. Companies were operating at 85%. We had a forex cover of three-and-a-half months [from a week]… We had fuel for 15 days at any given time… The one thing I wasn’t aware of when I came into office is there was so much corruption, and that corruption affects the gains you make.”
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Banda claims she started the fight against corruption, revamping Malawi’s financial management system, which she says led to 68 arrests and 30 frozen accounts.
The corruption scandal, or Cashgate, saw senior government officials in Banda’s administration charged with misallocating funds. According to Baker Tilly, the British auditors hired by Banda with financial support from the British government, the state was defrauded of about $32 million, almost 1% of Malawi’s annual GDP, between April and September 2013.
But Banda says the financial system was abused by previous governments, dating back to 2001. She knew bringing it to light was not going to be easy.
“I was warned by colleagues across the continent it’s not easy to fight corruption… because you are fighting very powerful people who are benefitting from that kind of money, and if you are not careful, you will get smeared on, be fought through and through, dragged to the ground…,” says Banda.
“I decided to go back to 2010 and 2011, as I saw the benefit of us finding the truth, [as] that is the only way to move forward. The audit reports together with the K6 billion ($15 million) stolen while I was in office, and the K92 billion ($232 million) [from her predecessor’s time] are before parliament now. The good news is that the current president has also decided to go ahead with the fight against corruption,” says Banda.
The May elections brought more grief.
In the aftermath of the polls, which she alleged were rigged, there was a point when she says she had to take responsibility, call for a recount, step aside from contesting, and concede defeat.
“People have asked me, why did you not contest, why did you concede, when the Electoral Commission had also announced there was rigging? I felt it was important for me to allow peace to prevail. I have always said Malawians come first, this was an opportunity for me to demonstrate that. Malawians must have a leader of their choice, but Malawians should also not shed blood. There is life after statehouse and so much more I can do. So I chose to concede, and have no regrets.”
The buzz in Malawi now is what’s next for Banda? Will she return to politics or philanthropy?
Banda says she will continue championing women’s rights not just in Malawi but across Africa, and since her arrival in Malawi, has been involved with projects through her foundation.
Questions abound about her political future.
“There is a sense of deja vu, with the forex situation worsening by the day, and the kwacha weakening against the dollar and other major trading currencies, many fear that a repeat of fuel shortages that characterized the DPP government may come again. That coupled with the failure to meet some campaign promises may push Joyce Banda’s popularity up,” says Mabvuto Banda, a Malawi-based journalist.
There has also been speculation she might be charged for Cashgate.
“Interestingly, the Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale [in August] lauded Joyce Banda for laying the foundation for the fight against Cashgate but he was quick to say more still needs to be done to effect more arrests. He also warned there will be no sacred cows, a statement that may have fueled speculation JB will not be left out,” says the reporter.
“Joyce Banda has a lot of powerful friends outside Malawi but it’s very difficult for me to see how she could be indicted when clearly many would interpret the indictment as trying to victimize her.”
“When you are innocent, when you are fighting for the people, prosecution does not matter,” Banda had said in Johannesburg, days before her return home.
“If I write a book about my life, it will be volumes and volumes. I want to write one book that [tells] any African woman reading it that [you] can be at the lowest in [your] life and bounce back. In my life, I have been down four times. Every woman who reads my book will know that when you fall, you get up, and run again.”

‘Malawians Should  Not Shed Blood’

In 1934, Helen Richey was the first female to pilot a commercial airline in the United States. A little less than 80 years later, in South Africa, three female pilots embarked on the first long-range flight with an all-female flight deck crew for South African Airways (SAA).
“I’ve been a captain on the long range for seven years and I’ve never had two ladies on the flight deck with me. These things happened by accident, it was a coincidence,” says Captain Jane Trembath, who flew with Senior First Officers Taryn Hochstrasser and Jocindy Mars.
It’s also about the numbers – there are far more male than female pilots, hence the likelihood of having a male co-pilot is greater. Of the 130,000 airline pilots worldwide, 4,000 are female, according to the International Society of Women Airline Pilots; around 70 of SAA’s 780 pilots are female.
“At 9%, we are still higher than the international average, and [Mars’ cadet program] were at 25%, which is even higher. It’s been through the cadet program that we’ve increased our percentage of women. SAA’s aim was 50-50, but I don’t think that’s ever happened. There were some intakes where only women survived, and women have a higher passing rate,” says Trembath.
SAA has offered a cadet training program since 1994, and it is highly selective including extensive medical and psychometric testing.
“The cadet program only takes a selected number of people, not everybody gets in, you have to be chosen, you have to be good enough, like these two,” she says, pointing at Hochstrasser and Mars.
“It’s difficult to get into the cadet program, I was told they’d received 8,000 applicants. They only chose 16 from those and the selection process took a year,” says Mars.
“We did psychometric testing, if you passed that, you went for a medical and a personality test, and then there is a final interview before you get chosen,” says Hochstrasser.
“You never know exactly what they’re looking for. The most important thing is the actual desire, because it’s a hard road for men as well as women, if you don’t have that desire then you won’t have the tenacity to stick it out. That’s probably what they’re looking for: do you really, really want it,” says Trembath.
Trembath’s non-conformist parents loaned her money to attend a flying school, where she completed her private and commercial pilot’s license. In the early 1980s, it cost around R15,000 to qualify. Today, it costs a minimum of R350,000 ($33,000), and flight training costs around R1,300 ($122) an hour. Due to the cost, some qualify through the air force, many subsequently move into commercial aviation to clock more flying hours.
After earning her wings, it was time to fly, but no one wanted a female pilot, and an inexperienced one at that.
“You always think each step of your commercial license is the most difficult: exams are difficult, getting the hours is difficult, writing your final flight tests is difficult, but it’s not. The most difficult part was getting a job as a woman back in
the 1980s.
“I got turned down for a couple of jobs because I was a woman and I was told that to my face. It took a lot of persistence and I had to hang in there,” says Trembath.
There aren’t many opportunities to gain experience, but newly-qualified South African pilots are hired by South African companies to fly their airplanes throughout Africa.
Trembath became a pioneer in South African aviation: “SAA didn’t have any women pilots before 1988. They accepted me along with two other women [Brenda Howett and Jennifer Burger], that was a whole new thing for the industry.”
In 1993, she was also the first South African female pilot who qualified to fly a Boeing 747-400. During her 32-year career, she is proud to have had many firsts and to have witnessed change.
“Today, as a woman, it’s a lot easier to find a job. In small companies, women are judged on their merits and no one is turned down because they’re a woman,” says Trembath.
There may be more female pilots today, but they still experience prejudice. Between the three of them, they recount stories of hesitant parents, unsupportive guidance counselors and mocking friends. Similarly, passengers do double takes when they see a female pilot, elderly men openly pray during a flight, and passengers pass snide remarks about empty kitchens.
“Two students came to the flight deck to say hello. He was from Netherlands and she was from Finland. She asked, ‘Are you the pilot?’ I said, ‘Yes, didn’t you hear the PA announcements?’ She said, ‘no, so you actually fly the airplane? Females can be pilots?’ It was strange because she comes from a first-world country and yet still has the same perceptions as everybody else,” says Hochstrasser.
They have learnt not to try change people’s minds, but to deal prejudice with humor and through empowering communication.
“Whatever you’re doing, you have to have a passion for it, because it won’t always be easy. Provided that you enjoy it and you’re doing it because you really, really want to do it, don’t do it for anyone else,” says Mars.
Truer words were never said.

Women Power At 30,000ft

Dinesh Patel had a solid plan: go to the United States (US), play professional golf and win a PGA tournament. His dream took shape when he earned a sport scholarship to study at Florida State University. When he got there he realized that it was going to be tough.
“It’s incredibly competitive and I don’t think that I was good enough, to be honest. But I also don’t think that I wanted it badly enough&#8230; Those guys are good, they work so hard and they were willing to sacrifice so much more than I was willing to sacrifice,” he says.
Patel, the son of a doctor and teacher from Durban, South Africa, decided to focus on his business studies but flirted with the idea of a career in the music business. In his final years at university, he worked as a campus label representative for Warner Brothers’ Electro Records.
“You throw parties and you get access to all the new music and you basically build these artists on a street level.”
When it came down to a career, Patel followed the money. His first job was in Atlanta where he worked as a senior consultant for Deloitte.
“On the day I joined, I think I knew that this wasn’t for me. But it was a great training ground because you learn so much about reading financial statements and understanding the mechanics of business.”
Two years later, he worked as a banker, at the peak of the financial crisis, for Goldman Sachs in New York.
It was here that Patel came across the innovative virtual canteen, Seamless. Patel made use of Seamless to order food on the nights he worked late in the office. The company initially focused on corporates but when they branched out, catering for everyone, business boomed. The concept of Seamless remained at the back of Patel’s mind and resurfaced years later.
After 10 years in the US, Patel returned to South Africa. He had many job offers and pursued his own business ventures but struggled to find his feet.
Through it all, he kept hearing his parent’s voice ringing in his head.
“Dinesh, first you wanted to be a golfer, now you’re not a golfer, then you wanted to be an accountant, now you’re not an to accountant, then you wanted to be a trader, now you’re not a trader, then you wanted to be an actor, well now you’re not an actor. What do you want? Can you just stick to something?”
Tired and on the brink of giving up, Patel experienced his epiphany. It came while he was lounging on his parent’s couch, in Cape Town, and the conversation was about dinner. It came down to two options: chicken from Nando’s or pizza from Panarottis.
“That’s when I immediately thought ‘there must be more options, if we had Seamless here it would be so good.’”
That night, Patel dashed out to meet Joseph Okleberry, who would become an investor. He had relocated from the US to South Africa to work as an internet strategist for Naspers. Okleberry brought his expertise of the web to the table.
Their conversation went something like this: “Joe you used Seamless, I used Seamless. Do you think something like this would work in South Africa?”
Okleberry was keen on the idea and the two men spent the rest of the evening drawing up the plan for OrderIn – an online food ordering service. It would partner with companies that offered delivery and customers would pay restaurant prices. In return, OrderIn would charge restaurants 8%.
Patel spent the next three months researching. He sent a proposal to Jason Finger, the founder of Seamless in the US, who jumped in.
“Jason brought in his development team from Seamless so we had all of their experience to build OrderIn from scratch. We used their experience and avoided some of the mistakes they had made. It was fascinating to see what a website that does a quarter million orders a day looks like,” says Patel.
Hennie Booysen, who worked for Skype in London and is also a co-founder of Groupon, joined the team as a co-founder. He brought his expertise in the e-commerce space.
With the help from an investor at Naspers and a hedge fund in New York, OrderIn secured the capital.
Patel formed a team of five who worked on the website for eight months, from a house in Camps Bay in Cape Town. As the launch neared, there were nerves.
Then the first order rang in.
“Everyone freaked out! We were like ‘oh my gosh there’s actually an order,’” says Patel.
The customer, who was working late at Investec, had a craving for sushi. Everything was running as planned. The order appeared on the OrderIn system, the machine at the sushi bar had printed the receipt and the customer received notification that the order would take 45 minutes. There was only one problem; the sushi bar had no delivery man.
“I raced from my house to the restaurant, picked up the food and dropped it off at the customer,” says Patel.
The guy told Patel, dressed casually, that he didn’t look like a delivery guy. Patel spun the story that as the first customer he received a special delivery from the founder and CEO.
Although OrderIn has had its fair share of hiccups, it has not deterred them. By next year, they would have signed 650 restaurants.
Patel says many overlook the cost of staff, maintaining a website and customer service when calculating profits.
“A lot of guys coming into the market are pricing themselves very cheaply, one to three percent. But the reality of it is that’s not a sustainable business model.”
When it comes to business, the 32-year-old founder and CEO of OrderIn doesn’t worry much, as he relies on the expertise of his team.
“I’m always the stupidest guy in the room. My investors and our team are so much smarter than me, that makes running a business so much easier.”
From sportsman to banker and now online food, Patel is happy he kept moving forward.
“I’ve always had this hustle. I want to do something on my own; I want to create something… When you are in a large corporate environment you don’t feel like you’re in control and as an entrepreneur, I think you want to feel like you are in control. You want to feel like you’ve got a say in your destiny.”
So, if at first you don’t succeed, try everything, try anything but try, try and try again.

‘I’m Always The  Stupidest Guy In The Room’

In 1998, approximately two hours since I had passed the front gate of the United States (US) Embassy in Nairobi, a huge blast ripped through the building at 10.35AM.
The embassy was situated next to the busy road that I would take every day to and from journalism school. The bomb was targeted at the US embassy, but Ufundi House next door, which houses small offices and a secretarial college, took the brunt of the explosion.
The journalism school was about five kilometers away from the city center and I remember being in a usual morning lecture when I heard a loud bang.
Being young and curious, we rushed to the scene of the blast where rescue workers were trying desperately to dig their way into the wreckage to reach dozens of people trapped inside.
The blast had almost leveled the five-storey Ufundi House and caused extensive damage to the embassy. The scene was chaotic, people running in all directions. The roads were even more chaotic, cars driving in the wrong lanes with their lights on. People who did not know what had happened thought that the government had been overthrown and there was heavy fighting in the city center.
Nairobi was in mayhem. What do you do? Where do you start from? Who do you call? I had two brothers and a sister in Nairobi but there was no way of reaching them, telephones were down and transport was non-existent. I felt helpless and horrified.
Back at the scene, a lady covered in blood tells her story to the media.
“I heard a loud bang then the whole place was shaking and within a split second glass was falling on my head,” she said.
Ambulances, firefighters, army and police frantically attended to bodies, both dead and injured, burnt buses and cars, and damaged buildings. It is a scene that has stayed with me for a very long time. The first question that I asked myself was, ‘What did we do to deserve such a violent attack?’
As a dense plume of smoke soared above the skyline, hundreds of people fled the scene while thousands rushed towards it to see what had happened. The city quickly became logjammed, causing further problems for ambulances and rescue workers.
The charred bodies lay in the street near mannequins blown out of nearby shop windows. Scores of people were seen covered in blood from injuries caused by flying glass.
After spending four hours at the scene, I picked myself up and started walking home. Along the way, information started coming through. The death toll was 207 Kenyans and 12 US citizens. More than 1,000 had been injured.
In the blink of an eye, the Al Qaeda terrorist group announced its presence in East Africa, and brought the group’s leader Osama Bin Laden to the attention of the US government.
Terrorism has taken another dimension since then. Kenya’s security forces have struggled to contain an evolving terrorist threat and much of the focus has been on Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militants, who use Kenya to seek out new recruits and financing.

Horror in Nairobi

No one could ever accuse songstress Shingai Shoniwa of being dull.
When she hits the stage late on Sunday evening at Ronnie Scott’s legendary Jazz Club in London’s Soho, she is in her third change of outfit, each brighter and more spectacular than the last. Each with an African twist.
Clearly, launching a solo music career is serious business and for Shingai dressing for the occasion is part of the theater.
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Born in South London of Zimbabwean parents in 1981, she has been the lead singer and bassist with Indie pop band The Noisettes for 11 years and has been touring the world, headlining gigs and creating music with fellow Noisette Dan Smith for far longer.
Together, they hit the big time in 2009 with their second album titled Wild Young Hearts, an album packed with catchy melodies and great vocals from Shingai, a singer who is confident and comfortable with her craft.
“Believe it or not, it has been really hard to get people to accept me in the music industry, a brown girl who plays bass and who sings and writes her own material. People want to pigeonhole you into a particular genre, and I don’t fit.”
For years, Shingai has been singing the lyrics to Sometimes a bitter-sweet break-up tune: ‘Sometimes…  we start over&#8230; and go solo’. Now it’s her turn to start over. For the last three months, Shingai has been in Los Angeles recording her debut solo album &#8211; the first time she is recording music without Smith.
For Shingai, the United States (US) has a broader musical canvas.
“In [Britain], radio trends are not daring, not exciting and they are driven by imported music. In the US, pop music has room for a lot of original characters.”
When we were arranging this interview, Shingai texted me from Cuba to tell me: “Cuba is incendiary! It’s a feast for the creative spirit&#8230; I’m recording some wonderful music here with Afro Cuban artists… I’m very inspired.”
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Her Los Angeles life is obviously still evolving, and as they rehearse together in the jazz club’s downstairs dressing room she shows Smith pictures of her newly rented West Hollywood home. Transitioning her life from one continent to another is already well underway. She has sold her old Mercedes in London, and a new vintage model is about to be purchased. Laughing loudly, she says she is now based between Hollywood and Hove, a town on England’s south coast.
Tonight, at Ronnie Scott’s, is the first time she will have performed any of the new material on stage and she admits she is nervous and has butterflies. Some musicians drink to gain some Dutch courage. Not Shingai.
“I won’t drink alcohol because you have to feel the music and drink just kills it.”
She’ll be playing a short set of tunes old and new. But, for her it’s all about the audience’s reaction to the Thomas Mapfumo-inspired Zimtron, which sounds like a mash-up between Mapfumo and the afro-pop of Fela Kuti.  I think this is a big step on from the Indie pop of The Noisettes but true to form Shingai kicks back.
“I don’t think so, it feels like an evolution. Zimbabwean music and Shona culture has always been a big reference point for me.”
Watching Shingai rehearse the set during the soundcheck is a revelation. Doors open and paying guests arrive for song and supper at 6.30PM sharp. Shingai, performing as a guest with the Natalie Williams Soul Family, has 22 minutes to run through four songs which are brand new to the band. Acting as musical director, Shoniwa sings her own part and eases the arrangements up and down, bringing the band and three vocalists in earlier and later as required.
“Most singers just know how to sing. This was a hard night with lots of new songs and she took the pressure off us by doing that,” says the Soul Family bass player afterwards.
Shingai has flown in from Los Angeles for tonight’s London gig and her large family are here in force to see her perform.
“I’ve never been away from them for this long before, and I’ve been missing them so much,” she says.
By coincidence her twin sister, Shorai Shoniwa, a media executive, slips into a seat beside me when I’m settling down to watch Shingai sing.
“Since she was four years old, Shingai has been performing, and we are all so proud of her,” says Shorai.
When I mention that we were all supposed to meet at 4PM and Shingai had turned up at 5PM &#8211; still without her stage dress,which is in Kilburn, west London &#8211; Shorai laughs.
“We call that Shingai-time in the family!”
When Shingai  was 10 years old she went and lived with her grandmother in the savannah plains of Tete in Mozambique for a year. She explains that if not for the colonial boundaries, her Malawian gran would have been from the Chewa tribe.
“That year made a big impression. It just made me appreciate the richness of the colors, the sounds, the fashion, the voices of my African heritage.”
Which explains why Shingai reflects Africa so vividly in her clothes and in her work today.
For Shingai, music was always a part of family life.
“I’ve grown up in an environment where I’ve had a lot of musicians coming in and out of my living room. From the late eighties my mum and uncle used to put on events at the Africa Centre. Someone would ask me: ‘Who’s your favorite singer?’ and I’d say Whitney Houston and they’d say: ‘Well this is how you play it Zimba style!’”
Shingai was born in Brockley, raised in South East London and is quick to emphasize that’s where all the best London art colleges, like Goldsmiths and Ravensbourne, are. She went to the prestigious BRIT school for the Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon and studied theater for two years. Towards the end of her stay, she formed Sonarfly with Smith.
Sonarfly quickly moved from an eclectic repertoire of blues standards and cover songs to writing their own original material. The Noisettes arrived in 2003 and in part had to busk to raise the money to record their first album. They have subsequently recorded two more acclaimed albums and are delighted to have made more of an international impact with their third album Contact.
But, tonight belongs to Shingai, the London singer who is so proud of her Zimbabwean heritage. The audience reception to Zimtron is rapturous and Shingai is thrilled.
So what does the future hold for her?
“We live in the global world where we have access to and can see what everyone else is up to. It’s about reaching everybody. To me, headlining festivals in Zimbabwe and in Malawi, on Freedom Day in Johannesburg and at Belladrum in Scotland is just as important as playing Abbey Road, the O2 and Glastonbury. We’ve done that, enjoyed it, and now for me it’s about reaching out to people internationally.”
So watch out Africa, Shingai Shoniwa is coming!
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Solo In Soho With A Songstress Of Steel

The Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, in the United States, will host the 78th Masters tournament in April, but this is only the second since it allowed females to join the golf club. But no women will participate in the international major. Instead, they will compete in the Kraft Nabisco Championship, which will take place a week earlier in California and is in its 41st year.
Gender-equality is not much more than a concept in golf, which takes pride in its staunch adherence to tradition. South Africa is one of the countries making strides to close that gap. This year February saw the launch of the Sunshine Ladies Tour, a six-tournament event, each of which carries prize money of R100,000 ($9,430). But is it enough to reignite the game among women who are oft-ignored?
“Women’s professional golf in South Africa was in a wasteland since 2009,” says Margie Whitehouse, the chairperson of the Women’s Professional Golf Association of South Africa (WPGA).
Prior to 2009, the only tournament on the women’s golf calendar was the South Africa Women’s Open, which did not have status abroad and was canceled in 2010 and 2011. When the WPGA elected a new board in 2012, they sought to change that.
“We acknowledged that our members and aspirant professionals were being forced to seek a competitive platform abroad. We set about, immediately, to create a local competitive platform,” says Whitehouse.
The Women’s Open, which is part of the European Tour schedule, is one half of how women are gaining ground on the golf course. The other is the new Sunshine Tour. Like its male counterpart, it too will serve as a qualifying event for the season-ending Investec Cup, a marquee tournament on the local golfing calendar. The men’s event has prize money of R6 million ($562,000), which according to Selwyn Nathan, the Executive Director of the Sunshine Tour, “heightens the sense of camaraderie in the South African golf community”.
For women, the purse is R300,000 ($28,000), but Investec see it as a way to support the fairer sex.
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“By incorporating a ladies element into the Investec Cup 2014, we are indicating support for the commitment, enthusiasm, skill and personal development that is required to succeed in this sporting code. Women’s sport is an uncluttered market commercially, and we look forward to showcasing some of South Africa’s top female golfers as athletes and individuals,” says Janet Larsen, Investec’s Head of Marketing.
Lee-Anne Pace is a Mossel Bay-born golfer, who won three tournaments on the Ladies European Tour in 2013 and was named the European Tour’s Player of the Year for a second time. She hopes to bring more success home to grow the local game.
“It is vital for South African golfers to support the Sunshine Ladies Tour and to help it become a successful and strong competition. As it grows, it will get more money and attract players from overseas. For now it’s just great that there is an opportunity for South African players to compete at home,” she says.
Like many South African golfers, Pace, who started caddying for her father as a teenager to earn pocket money, had to leave South Africa, the country of her birth, to kick-start her golf career. She received a scholarship from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma and turned professional after representing the institution. Soon, she hopes to receive her full card for American tournaments, called the LPGA. With that will come increased earnings and the opportunity to compete in events such as the Kraft Nabisco Championship, both prestigious and lucrative.
She does not want to focus on the pay discrepancy too much.
“The men earn more money than us, but you know that going into this career. It should not really make a difference to how you approach the game. I am not too worried about the male-female inequality in golf. I am just enjoying myself and my career. I love golf and the challenges it holds and to be able to do it for a living is such a privilege.” For now, she is perfecting her swing.

Teeing Off At Home

It is a Saturday afternoon and like many other shopping malls, this Johannesburg center is thronged with people running errands and lugging shopping bags. Escalators and elevators are full. At the tills bored tellers ring up purchases as snaking queues of customers wait their turn, while others push packed trollies through chaotic aisles.
One would be forgiven for mistaking this scene for the Christmas rush, except that this is a weekend in mid-January. The number of shopping malls mushrooming around the country and the expansion of shopping centers cannot keep up with South Africa’s insatiable consumer culture. Shopping has gone from being a fun to an arduous and time-consuming task. It is no surprise then, that 2013 saw the largest increase in online shopping. This trend is bound to continue in 2014.
“It’s true that e-commerce in South Africa is booming and it’s incredibly exciting to be part of this adventure, which is partly what drove me to relocate from Germany: the opportunity to be part of this evolution,” says Kalahari.com’s new CEO, Caren Genthner-Kappesz, who relocated to Cape Town last year to head up the online retailer.
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“There have been a number of new entrants to the market in the last few years, which is fantastic because the more players there are, the more innovation there will be, and the more reasons people will have to enjoy the benefits of shopping online.”
It is hard to believe that before 1999, the word Kalahari meant the desert located in the west of Southern Africa. Today, the word lends itself to a pioneer in South African online retail. Last year, the Online Retail Brands Report ranked Kalahari.com as South Africa’s leading online retail brand, ahead of Amazon. That global online giant has aggressively dominated the online retail market in the United States. It is currently establishing its global footprint with localized branches in Europe and South Africa. Kalahari’s timeous delivery and the ease with which online shoppers can order anything from appliances to beauty products, has placed the brand in a strong position, according to Acentric Marketing Research, the agency that compiled the report.
“Kalahari.com has managed to maintain our lead as South Africa’s number one online store, and we believe that the key to doing this is to always keep your customer at the core of your business. We are extremely sensitive to our customer base and utilize various means to maintain open dialogue with them and actively action necessary innovation to improve the kalahari.com experience.”
With nine years of experience as general manager at shopping.com and as a director and general manager for eBay Express, both in Germany, Genthner-Kappesz fine-tuned the customer experience. She has also worked as a chief operations officer at brands4friends, an eBay subsidiary and market leader in flash sales in Germany. Genthner-Kappesz, who holds a PhD in Mathematics, maintains that the human element is what drives Kalahari.com’s success.
“It’s also essential to have the right team, and I’m very proud to say that I believe I am supported by some of the best and brightest available.”
Spurred on by the growing online shopping environment in South Africa, fashion vendor Style36.co.za and online furniture retailer 5rooms.com launched ‘Cyber Monday’ this December, as the festive season shopping frenzy began. The initiative was based on ‘Black Friday’, the day after American Thanksgiving in the United States, when items are marked down to a fraction of their price. With the tagline ‘One Day. One Sale. One Massive Discount’, the South African version was an exclusively online sale that offered discounts of up to 80%.
The inaugural ‘Cyber Monday’ sale was a bold move by the two smaller retailers that became an effective advertising vehicle as more South Africans turn to online shopping. The furniture retailer 5rooms.com had their biggest sale day since the site was launched in 2012, while fashion retailer Style36.co.za saw a record of 100,000 visitors in 24 hours and became one of the most-visited websites in the country on the day.
Despite the boom in online shopping, retailers still face stiff competition from shops and have to be a step ahead.
“At the end of the day retail is retail, and pricing is a key element of that. Obviously online retailers need to plan and negotiate very carefully in order to offer value,” she says.
“We are very big on malls and we like to taste and touch and see and feel. The more you move down in the pyramid the more tactile they are with objects. They’re looking at the stitching on the shoe, they’re feeling the fabric for how thick it is. They’re testing the stitching, they’re yanking and pulling and you can’t do that online. I don’t think that the trust is there yet for online shopping, and that’s understandable because we don’t even trust the stores we’re going into, we’re still inspecting everything very closely,” says Genevieve van Vuuren at the Consumer Insight Agency
The Cape Town-based consumer trends analyst also recalls the challenges faced by a Kenyan client who established an online shoe shop. While the website had a fair share of visits, customers preferred to try on the shoes before buying them. This made the website more of an advertiser than a vendor.
“I think as a culture we’re getting there, especially with electronics and stationery and stuff that you don’t have to try on like clothing,” says van Vuuren.
Building trust and a desire to purchase are key to building an online presence. In aspirational cultures like South Africa, products that consumers can’t purchase in their home country are most popular, but this has its drawbacks.
Kalahari.com has launched a cellphone application that could prevent customers from ever wanting to leave their couches. The Kalahari.com Scan and Shop app allows customers to find the best deals by scanning the barcode of a book, DVD, CD or gadget they’re eyeing out in a shop. The app compares the shop’s price to that of the online retailer’s price. Following in the footsteps of Amazon, Kalahari also offers a mobile shopping app as well as its own e-book reader.
“We believe that mobile internet is really the future in South Africa and we aim to be at the forefront of this. A recent survey of our customer base indicated that over 95% of smartphone users either already use shopping apps or would consider doing so. The development of a proprietary app allows us to deliver a much more sophisticated user experience to the user and also opens up the native technologies of the device to us.”
Since joining Kalahari.com in March last year, Genthner-Kappesz has tried to harness the popularity of mobile internet in South Africa.
Smaller retailers have fewer resources to throw at advertising and consumer innovations rely heavily on word of mouth. My Sister’s Closet is a popular women’s fashion boutique in Johannesburg, owned by sisters Sharna and Louise Darko. The shop carved a niche for itself by offering London’s latest trends to Johannesburg’s fashionistas. Last year, the Darko’s felt that the only way to expand the shop was through cyberspace.
“Going online was a natural progression for us as we were avid online shoppers back home in the UK. That coupled with the emerging global trend of online shopping, we knew South Africa would soon be jumping on the bandwagon. We were already getting requests from our customers to courier items to them if they couldn’t get to the store,” says Sharna Darko.
In February 2013, the sisters launched their e-commerce website. While they entered a market that was already dominated by online clothing fashion stores, such as Zando.com as well as retail giants Mr Price, it was well received. After observing a noticeable dip in their boutique’s foot traffic, they decided to trade solely online from August of that year.
“I think the size of our business works in our favor as we’re able to add that personal touch to our customer service. We also offer exclusivity, as we’re not shifting thousands of units of the same item,” says Sharna Darko.
Many e-commerce websites are reaping the benefits of engaging online with their clientele. My Sister’s Closet actively uses social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to communicate with their customers. The online fashion retailer also sponsors the wardrobes of popular television presenters. So, if a potential customer liked the kente cloth pencil skirt that they saw on the box, they can tweet the boutique. In minutes they’ll know about the availability of their size and will be directed to the online website – all from the comfort of their lounge. If the skirt is not the right fit, it can be easily returned without the hassle of an in-store exchange or the unforgiving harsh light of a fitting room.
Online retailers still need to build unfaltering consumer trust, as ultimately this will encourage customers to shop from the comfort of their homes rather than the inconvenience of bustling shopping malls. This means no pushing or shoving, no long queues when you have so many other things to do. One thing online retailers are getting right is that the customer’s time is limited.

Online’s Fine, So Manic Malls Decline

Philanthropy is entering what some economists and academics believe is another golden age. Previously, there were booms in giving in Renaissance Europe, 18th-century Britain, the Victorian era, and during the age of industrialization in the 19th-century.
It is hardly surprising, considering how the number of millionaires has increased across the world. But inequality remains widespread. Besides the fact that giving makes one feel good for various reasons, it also makes business sense.
“Philanthropy in Africa, strateg-ically pursued, will contribute to broad-based growth, which creates markets, which in turn enables commerce. How could it not make good business sense?” says Jane Wales, who is the CEO of the Global Philanthropy Forum (GPF).
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Besides opening up markets, many philanthropists are able to provide risk capital for social innovation where governments and businesses are averse to go. John D. Rockefeller, who was one of the first philanthropists in the United States (US), was key to helping eradicate yellow fever and hookworm.
A contemporary example is Eli Broad, whose Broad Foundation is sponsoring medical research in human genomics to revolutionize clinical medicine and make that knowledge freely available across the globe.
“Philanthropy is not and should not be about sure bets. It should include a very healthy dose of risk taking. In fact, in an era of 24-hour news cycles, snap judgments, and the tyranny of quarterly reports, one could argue that the philanthropic sector is the only societal actor that can take risks, withstand short-term setbacks and make long-term investments in the social good,” says Wales.
In the US, philanthropy and charities are encouraged through massive tax breaks. This is very different in Africa, where there is little legal framework for philanthropy. However, there is a push by philanthropic organizations, such as the Kenya Community Development Foundation, for governments to adopt policies that are favorable for philanthropy.
But what is philanthropy? The most common definition is that it is a humane act aimed at creating a better life. So how do we value human life?
Acclaimed philosopher Peter Singer believes that if we were forced to put a price tag on human life, we would say it is in the millions.
He then goes onto to argue that we are all created equal, “at least to the extent of denying that differences of sex, ethnicity, nationality and place of residence change the value of a human life”.
This is especially true for many Africans, who continue to live in abject poverty and survive on handouts.
But its not all doom and gloom. This picture is changing, albeit it painfully slowly in some areas. Philanthropy is gaining momentum in Africa, and it is not only international do-gooders who are helping communities uplift themselves in a sustainable way.
Africans are increasingly becoming involved in philanthropic projects, with the belief that we should be driving the broad-based growth on the continent.
In South Africa, the tax regime is slightly more beneficial. Currently, donations to public benefit organizations are deductible up to 10% of an individual’s taxable income in the year the donation is made.
But the South African Revenue Service (Sars) has noted that large donations are discouraged, because donations in excess of the limit cannot be carried over. It is now looking at allowing donations in excess of 10% of taxable income in any given year to be rolled over as allowable deductions in subsequent years.
According to Nedbank’s Giving Report II, which surveys the giving practices of high-net worth individuals in South Africa, respondents highlighted insufficient tax benefits as a reason for not being philanthropic.
“In 2012 a total of 29% of donors (104) said they would give more if there were more tax perks for giving. This is almost double the 15% of respondents in 2010 who said that changes to the tax regime would influence their giving behavior.”
The Private Philanthropy Circle (PPC), an independent forum of individual philanthropists, is in the process of preparing a formal submission to Sars and the National Treasury on amending the tax regime.
“We believe that tax legislation that promotes philanthropy through benefits or relief for the establishment and growth of philanthropic foundations (institutionalized giving) will ultimately encourage and ensure the sustained strategic support of civil society. Likewise, the non-profit sector would benefit from a more enabling environment for their donors a well,” says PPC member Amanda Bloch. The forum wants a number of changes, including an increase in the upper limit of 10%, the lengthy turnaround times at the Tax Exemption Unit to be addressed, and a clarification from Sars on gifts in kind and services donated, such as time, skill and effort.
Many types of philanthropy are practiced around the world and they all have varying benefits.
“Impact investing”, which aims to achieve financial and social environmental gain at the same time, is becoming more popular. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and one of the greatest philanthropists of our time, is an advocate for program-related investments (PRIs).
Instead of giving money away through grants, PRIs allow philanthropic foundations to make investments as loans or equity stakes, hoping to regain them at a later stage, plus a reasonable rate of return.
The Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation’s $400 million investment program encourages employees to weigh up the social and financial returns involved in proposed projects.
In 2009, non-profit social investment fund Root Capital was chosen as the foundation’s first PRI. The organiz-ation is expanding opportunities for 500,000 rural households in Africa with an investment of $10 million and a $4 million grant. It is being used to extend access to credit, financial management training, and global market opportunities for small and growing rural businesses.
As privatization and the scramble for Africa’s mineral wealth continues, some philanthropic organizations and academics believe there are new opportunities to harness these resources for the public good.
Lester Salamon, a director at the Institute for Policy Studies at John Hopkins University in the US, argues for what he calls “Philanthropication thru Privatization (PtP)”. Basically, it is the phenomenon of capturing, in charitable endowments, at least some of the proceeds of the sales of state-owned enterprises or common-use resources underway around the world.
In one study, Salamon says that more than 500 endowed, independent charitable foundations have been created or enriched during the privatizations, and together they control assets of $128 billion.
The African Grantmakers Network believes PtP will help to prevent the continent’s civil society from relying solely on external funding. An example cited is the Newmont Ahafo Dev-elopment Foundation in Ghana. It was formed in 2008 when Newmont Ghana Gold Limited and the Ahafo Social Responsibility Forum pledged to support community development programs near the mine.
The company contributes $1 per ounce of gold produced and 1% of net profits from the mine to the foundation. In turn, the foundation supports economic empowerment, infrastructure development and sports and social amenities.
Becoming financially self-sufficient and not over reliant on aid and donors is not to be scoffed at. But just how many good deeds can be done when the overwhelming leitmotif of the initiative is driven by profit? Surely a case can be made that profit would, in most instances, trump philanthropy?
Whatever the method of benevolence, Africans are stressing that it needs to be sustainable. Earlier this year, GPF launched its most recent regional affiliate, the African Philanthropy Forum (APF).
Its aim is to contribute to the expansion of strategic philanthropy by Africans in Africa by seeking to address the underlying causes of a given problem. Put differently, don’t give a handout; give a hand up.
“But it would be a mistake to assume that strategic philanthropists ignore such inputs as instinct and intuition. It would also be a mistake to assume that deep in their hearts they are not in search of a ‘silver bullet’ that will solve all. It’s human nature to be impatient in one’s search for a better world. And that’s a good thing,” says Wales. APF’s members define philanthropy broadly to encompass all private means of financing the social good – from grants and microfinance to investments in enterprises that provide goods, services and income-generating opportunities for the poor. Some put their companies to the service of social goals, pursuing what is known as a ‘shared value’ or ‘inclusive business’ strategy.
APF believes the next wave of philanthropic innovation will come from the continent. The forum’s impressive membership includes Nigerians Tony Elumelu and Hakeem Belo-Osagie. Elumelu wants to rewrite Africa’s story by leveraging markets in a strategy he refers to as ‘Africacapitalism’, while Belo-Osagie supports a number of higher-education institutions and philanthropic funds to advance education and build leadership skills among young Africans.
Other members are South Africans Hylton and Wendy Appelbaum, who support a variety of causes, and Benin’s Angelique Kidjo, who promotes the empowerment of women and girls.
One of Africa’s most well-known couples involved in philanthropy is mining magnate Patrice Motsepe and his wife, Precious Moloi-Motsepe, who is a key player in Africa’s fashion industry. They made headlines earlier this year when they announced that they would donate half of their wealth to their foundation, which is involved in a number of initiatives to uplift communities.
The Motsepes join the likes of Gates and US business magnate Warren Buffet, who started the Giving Pledge, which encourages the super-rich to donate at least half of their wealth to charities.
Although the super-rich are often criticized that their philanthropic efforts are in part motivated by self-interest, their impact on making changes for good cannot be scoffed at.
As Albert Einstein so aptly put it: “It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.”

The value of philanthropy

Every year, mainly middle class students from Africa head off in droves to the United Kingdom and the United States to get a world class education.
But Britain’s Lancaster University and its partner, Trans National Education (TNE) Ghana Limited, are hoping to change this. They are opening a branch of Lancaster University in Ghana this month – the first of its kind in West Africa.
The campus will be developed into a major teaching and research university of international standing and will be a welcome addition to the country’s education system. Although in some regards Ghana is considered to be one of the best education hubs in West Africa, many academics describe pre-tertiary education at government schools as being in crisis.
Some of the reasons given are poor teaching and not enough teachers. Unions estimate that more than 30,000 teachers have abandoned their posts in recent years for greener pastures.
The Accra campus, known as Lancaster University Ghana, hopes to attract between 3,000 and 4,000 students in 10 years’ time.
Organizers say students will pay just 25% of the costs they would pay to study at a university in the UK or US. In today’s sluggish global economy, this saving is likely to be appreciated by parents who fork out large sums of money to ensure their children get a decent education.
“We are very happy. We have done a lot of recruitment… and have had an excellent response from students,” says the human resources manager for TNE Ghana, Martha Amankwah.
The university will be offering its foundation program this year, and students who enroll in this program will continue their undergraduate studies in October 2014.
The owners of TNE Ghana undertook a similar project in Dubai  with Australia’s Murdoch University. They say Ghana, with its growing middle class making it a lucrative sector for private education, was an obvious choice.
“Ghana is very important for us. We chose it because it is politically stable and a growing economy,” explains the project’s director, Raghav Lal. Post-graduate degrees will be offered as weekend programs, so students will be able to work and study simultaneously.
“Lancaster University Ghana will contribute to increasing the pool of internationally educated young people, ready to take their places in developing and growing the Ghanaian and wider African economy. It will join existing institutions of higher education to further enhance Ghana’s reputation as an educational hub for West Africa,” says the university’s vice chancellor, Mark Smith.
A range of undergraduate courses will be on offer, including management, business, international relations, computer science, law, psychology and the university’s world-renowned MBA program.
There will also be a bridging course for students who need additional training in order to be accepted into first-year courses. In the past, some government ministers have accused tertiary institutions of fueling the high level of joblessness among graduates, claiming universities and colleges enroll mediocre students who then graduate with sub-standard qualifications.
Students will be allowed to participate in summer schools at the university and they will have online access to Lancaster’s library. Lecturers will be flown in from the UK when necessary.
After completing their studies, graduates will receive the same degree certificate they would have if they had studied in the UK. “We will be giving students a UK education without them having to leave,” says Lal.
Although the university will not be targeting women students in particular, it says it has learnt some lessons from the Dubai experience and will set up what’s known as a ‘lunchbox association ’ to help women move forward in their careers.
The campus has appointed John Grainger as its provost. Until recently he was at   Dubai’s Murdoch University.
“Lancaster University has earned an enviable global reputation for exceeding student expectations of quality service delivery in the UK and abroad. Students at the Accra campus will benefit from the same exceptional standards. We offer first-class facilities, a convivial environment and commitment to unswerving student focus,” Grainger says.
Rakesh Wahi, founder of TNE Ghana Limited, says: “This campus is our first education venture in West Africa and shares the group’s vision of creating a network of branch campus experiences in Africa, through quality teaching, state-of-the-art infrastructure, research-led curriculum and innovation in delivery of the curriculum.”
Wahi and Zafar Siddiqi are also the founders of CNBC Africa, FORBES AFRICA, and the ABN360 group.

Private sector takes the gap in GHANA

Forty years ago, if someone started a video game development company in Africa, investors would laugh him out of court. Today, America, Europe and Asia have turned the video gaming industry into a sub-culture worth billions of dollars, with millions of players worldwide.
In 2008, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) reported a growth of $11.7 billion from video game software sales in the United States. In South Africa, the Xbox 360 Console sold an average of 3,000 units per month as of October 2006. According to Core Gaming, a South African Nintendo distribution company, the Wii console sold around 4,850 units per month by October 2007. The South African gaming industry grew to the R1.7 billion ($198 million) mark in 2011, according to the GfK Group.
There has been a lot of controversy about who created the first video game. In 1948, Thomas T. Goldsmith Junior and Estle R. Mann patented the Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device. It required players to overlay pictures of targets, such as airplanes, in front of the screen, making the term video game redundant.
By the 1950s, video game development became more popular. In 1952, Alexander S. Douglas, a computer science professor, created a version of Tic-Tac-Toe, which is rumored to be the first graphical computer game because unlike Goldsmith and Estle’s device, images were displayed onscreen.
In 1958, William Higinbotham, an American physicist, created Tennis for Two. Four years later, Steve Russell, a MIT scholar, spearheaded the team that created Space War.
Jonathan Musa, an avid gamer, remembers playing Pac-Man in the late 1980s. He owned an Atari console, which was operated by a control pad with a protruding joy-stick and one button.
“You could only play it for 30 minutes before the adaptor overheated,” says Musa.
His admiration for games was passed on to his younger brothers, Paul and Anthony, who were born shortly after the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) outpaced the Atari in the early 1990s. The games were sold in the form of cartridges. The boys were introduced to the Sega Mega Drive games, which hit Kenyan shelves in the mid-1990s. Japan released the console in 1988 and the Sega Genesis, took the American market by storm the following year.
Musa was still enjoying the Sega Mega Drive when the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES) was released soon thereafter. Imagine Game Network (IGN) reports that the console has sold more than 49.1 million units worldwide since its conception.
In 1994, the Japanese company released the Nintendo 64 (N64), named after its 64-bit Central Processing Unit, which rivaled all other consoles. The N64 sold 32.93 million units worldwide and was named the 9th greatest video game console by IGN in 2009. Sony released the Play Station on December 31,1995 in Japan; it came to Kenya the following year.
Due to the high cost of Play Station games, piracy became rampant. A popular trend known as hot-swapping gave the market its hardest blow. The process entailed loading an original Play Station game and then quickly swapping the disk for a pirated one once the Play Station logo appeared on the television screen. In Kenya, gamers who wanted to save money would buy one original game and several pirated ones. Video gaming is a lifestyle for some. The Xbox 360 and the Play Station 3 (PS3) have an internal cooling system so that gamers can play for hours on end. On weekends Anthony plays Battlefield, a first-person shooter (FPS) in 1080 pixels on a High-definition flat screen; 64-bits seems like joke now that the PS3 is compatible with Blu-ray. The current generation of videogames has left veterans awestruck in its wake.
Sony and Microsoft have established social networks on their online platforms. Players are represented by glowing dots on a world map; South Africa is the brightest country on the continent.
The video gaming industry has shifted to a mass market model. According to Video Game Charts, Nintendo’s Wii console sold 95.85 million units worldwide as of March; while Sony’s PS3 sold 63.9 million units; Microsoft’s Xbox 360 sold 67.2 million units in April.
The real-time data from first-person shooters is mindboggling: millions of people play Call of Duty at any given time.According to Activision, one of the world’s leading producers of video games, 1.2 trillion virtual bullets have been fired since the game hit shelves. On August 3, 2011, the company confirmed that the game had sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling game in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe.
For the gaming industry in Sub-Saharan Africa, the proof is in the pudding. Stores like GameStop and Toy World have found the gaming industry to be very lucrative. The moment a popular game hits shelves, leaflets are distributed to shopping complexes. According to Toy World, Call of Duty is one of Kenya’s best-selling first-person shooters.
Today, your 12-year-old son is giving tactical commands in your living room. His friends are part of an elite squadron of soldiers, fighting a war on the Caspian border. Your neighbors are managing your favorite football teams. And your daughter is playing lawn tennis in the living room. Thanks to companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, millions of people around the world can do this from the comfort of their homes. Africa has yet to capitalize on the video
game market.

Tag: United States

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