africanmediainitiative.org

Ory Okolloh is a woman who juggles it all: she’s a mother of three, a wife and works as Google’s policy manager for Africa and is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. “I don’t sleep much,” she tells Forbes. “It helps that I love what I do and I am very passionate about it, so it doesn’t feel like work.”

The busy Kenyan native says she wants her kids to see how important it is to care about the world and have an impact. Her goal is simple: to focus on Africa’s untapped potential. She is known for her politically aware blogs, digital initiatives and her commitment to helping keep governments accountable. Okolloh stepped onto the scene with Mzalendo, a website that keeps Kenya’s government accountable. Mzalendo tracks each representative’s parliament activities, monitors and analyizes every bill and every speech. She then went on to co-found Ushahidi, a free open source platform for crowdsourcing crisis data. Ushahidi is a combination of eye-witness reports and has assisted in monitoring Kenyan elections, tracking violence in the Eastern Congo and even mapping post-earthquake Haiti.

With her online political accountability experience, Okolloh landed her current position as Google’s policy manager for Africa. In this position, the digital and political saavy young woman says she focuses on three priorities: getting more African users online, content for African online users and the role of technology in various African countries. But even though her professional career centers on digital initiatives, Okolloh believes that technology alone isn’t what Africa needs.

“I don’t think technology or social media alone can bring political change,” Okolloh said to Forbes. “At the end of the day you still need to go offline unto the streets. If you look at the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia- even Occupy Nigeria here, it might have been spurred and organized online, so technology plays the role of a facilitator, but at the end of the day the real impact was felt when the people went out to the street. So no amount of protests with a popular hash tag would have achieved the kind of impact that happened when people actually went out.”

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njabiniapparel.org

For several women in Njabini, Kenya, clothes, jewelry and yoga mat bags are the key to financial empowerment. The Boston Globe reports on a steadily growing company called Njabini Apparel which is working to employ landless and physically disabled women and provide financial stability to the area.

“One of my desires is to see as many women empowered as possible because being here so long, I can tell you there are so many women that need to be empowered,” Mike Behan, one of the co-founders of Njabini Apparel said to the Boston Globe. Behan is a 21-year-old rising senior at Northeastern University. “Many men are not responsible in their families and that means that all the responsibilities are left to the women — feeding the children, clothing the children, paying the school fee.”

Behan first visited Njabini as a volunteer with the non-profit Flying Kites. With help from the non-profit, he and two other volunteers—Tom Mwangi and Erin O’Malley— started the apparel company in 2010. Since then, they have been able to employ eight women in the local community. To qualify as an employee the women must have at least one child under the age of 12, be physically disabled or landless, and live within 10 miles of Njabini. The company’s eight employees each make four times the average national income which is about $780. In addition, Njabini Apparel buys as much fabric and materials from the local area as possible and also provides employees with seminars and programs to encourage monthly budgeting, saving and business development.

Over the past two years the company has also been able to secure three project-specific grants to create outreach and educational programs. In December 2011 they started a pilot credit program for non-consumption-based assets loans. Njabini employees as well as other members of the community are able to receive $2,000-30,000 for small business projects.

“…to the women, they’re definitely not microloans,” Behan said. “They’re really flexible. It’s tailored to what each woman wants to accomplish.”

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• Behind the Click: Ashley Baxter, Digital Marketing Manager for J.C. Penney
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forbes.com

Kenyan internet entrepreneur Njeri Rionge has an eye for business ventures. She’s been conducting business for years and now she’s reaching out to help other African entrepreneurs as Africa becomes the next economic frontier.

“Every single entrepreneur must have a backbone, if you don’t have the backbone and capacity to sustain and to be agile enough to organise your ideas and your business growth, then you’re probably not made up for business or entrepreneurship,” she said to BBC.

Although Rionge has been managing businesses for years, she didn’t always experience success.

“I touched many things before I touched the thing that I turned to gold,” she said to BBC.  ”I did hairdressing, I did buying and selling of clothes in London and then the thing that actually created the opportunity for success.”

Rionge found business gold with Wananchi.com, a business venture she launched in 2000 that brought easy internet access to East Africa’s masses. Success wasn’t easy, she first had to fight the government leaders who weren’t entirely sold on the idea of accessible internet. Now she says, the biggest challenge in Kenya is the shortage of trained IT staff.

“The biggest challenge is human resources – how you actually maintain that success story on the human resource side of any business and also the funding and making sure that you always have enough capital to grow the business,” she told BBC Africa’s Ruth Nesoba.

Since then Rionge’s accolades also include Ignite, a management consultancy and her new-technology firm Insight. But Rionge is not afraid to offer her talents to help assist other entrepreneurs. For aspiring idea she created the Business Lounge, which is a space for entrepreneurs to brainstorm and network.

To Africa’s entrepreneurs, she says, “we encourage you to bring your ideas to the Business Lounge and [to] incubate them here for a period of time and within that incubation period we can actually support you.”

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http://us-cdn.creamermedia.co.za

Although the 2012 Grant Thornton International Business Report may observe that 21 percent of senior management roles are held by women globally, around the world women are expertly succeeding in business and in growing their fields.

In South Africa, the Oliver Empowerment Awards, a prestigious event to highlight leadership and innovation in empowerment, showcases two talented and driven businesswomen with their top awards.

“Women lead governments in Argentina, Australia, Brazil and Thailand and now head the International Monetary Fund and one of the five oil companies, Ron Fletcher, Impumeleo magazine’s publisher said to Biz Community. Impumelelo, Topco Media’s annual empowerment publication, hosted the event this year.

“Sadly, just 9% of businesses have a female CEO. This is despite the fact that women constitute more than 50% of the population. It is therefore even more gratifying to identify and thank these two trailblazers for their contribution to transformation which is about gender equality as much as it is about ethnicity,” he said.

Sibongile Maseko won the award for The Top Black Entrepreneur of the Year. Maseko finished her schooling and jumped in civil engineering at a construction company. As she began to work her way up, she found herself interacting with several small business entrepreneurs in the industry and decided to join their ranks. She started her business Bongi-M Construction from her own personal savings.

Nonkululeko Gobodo received the Top Black Business Leader of the Year award. Gobodo became the first black woman chartered accountant in South Africa. She then took on owning her on business, Gobodo Incorporated. Her business has gone from a few employees in South Africa’s Eastern Cape to a staff of 450 with seven regional offices.

“The winners clearly demonstrated that they had integrated transformation as part of their business processes,” Fletcher said. “The merits of this approach is evident in the business’ sustained success and worthy of celebration.”

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http://sista.wcr.gm

When Christian and Sandrine Roland first went off to college at the University of Laval in Quebec City, Canada, they never thought they’d be entrepreneurs. BBC Africa reports that their families expected them to graduate and secure jobs with large private companies. But when they partnered together on a marketing project, they both confirmed that working for others was not what they wanted to do.

“I think we were influenced by the North American way of thinking,” Sandrine said to BBC Africa. “We were taught that entrepreneurship is good… that you have to do your own thing, and create jobs and develop the economy of your country.”

Sandrine finished her degrees in marketing and communication, and Christian finished his in marketing and information technology. The Rolands, both natives of Ivory Coast, then went back to their country upon graduation where Christian immediately decided to launch his own business.

“When we finished school even our parents were surprised that he wanted to go straight into his own business. Me, I wanted to work first [as an employee] but the project of creating my own business was already there,” she said.

Christian’s father was against the idea but his mother supported him and gave him enough financial capital to help him start his first company, Assist, in 1999. His IT firm became the first Open Source provider in 2004 and currently still thrives, offering web design, internet engineering, information systems and community management. Sandrine worked for an advertising firm until 2006, when she opened up her own communication strategies agency, Intuition.

The enthusiastic entrepreneurial couple next debuted two other businesses–AOS Event Management and real estate firm XPERBAT.  In 2009, their four businesses came together under one name, the AOS group, which is able to employ 30 employees on a permanent basis and up to 500 temporary staff at a time. Their companies can proudly boast that they made it without bank loans or investment fund support; while partner support was needed for one of the companies, all of the test of the capital was raised by reinvesting the money.

Although the Rolands have seen success, it wasn’t easy. In addition to the challenges most entrepreneurs face, the Rolands had the added hardship of civil war.

“We started in 1999. Just after a few months there was the first war, then in 2002 the second war, so the environment was very hard but we are still here,” Christian said to BBC Africa.

“It was really a daily miracle. And also making enough money to pay the charges because you have to pay the salaries, pay the taxes, pay everything – electricity, rent – and it was really a struggle,” Sandrine adds.

The Rolands relay that the worst challenge was the 2010 political unrest when former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down to international recognized election winner Alassane Ouattara.

“Even through that, we went through and we’re happy now that we can look forward because a few months ago we did not have any visibility, but now we can look forward and we know that it’s going to get better,” she said.

The Rolands say they owe their success to God and their creativity. And to all the aspiring entrepreneurs, “Don’t listen to people,” Christian advices. “Just make what you can do to make your dream come true.”

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South Africa’s Simone Besterfield is making moves in online fashion and beauty advice. The 20-year-old part time student from Cape Town in South Africa started MyFashionBeautyTips.com in August 2011.

“MyFashionBeautyTips started out as a small website intended to give young girls and women inspirational ideas about Fashion, Beauty, Make-up, Hair and all other things ‘girly,’” Besterfield said on her website. Six months after its launch, the site currently receives about 1,200 hits daily and has a Facebook following of over 1170.

“I never in my wildest dreams thought that it would grow into such a popular website and get as many visitors as it does,” Besterfield, who started the site as a hobby, said. Besterfield is both the owner and editor of the site and works with web developer and SEO consultant Daniel. The site has tabs for everything fashion and beauty from hair, handbags and magazine to news shoes and make up. It features articles on fruit that help you lose weight, juicy couture and the highest earning women celebrities.

In a press-release Besterfield says she “keeps strict quality control on the website so that the content is always helpful and informative for her readers.”

She hopes that this year her site will reach 500,000 visitors.

Bethelehem Tilahun Alemu looked around Zenebework, her small, rural impoverished community in Ethiopia and vowed to make a difference not only in her life, but for those around her. Forbes reports that her commitment and drive to impact her community inspired her to create one of Africa’s premier footwear brands.

The lack of jobs available in Zenebework did not equate to lack of skill. Alemu observed the wealth of unused artistic talent so many in her community possessed. With the financial backing of her husband and immediate family, she brought together a group of talented artisans and founded SoleRebels in 2004. Nike, Reebok and Adidas can’t compare to this company. The name pays homage to the Ethiopian rebel fighters who wore the classic Selate and Barabasso shoe during their successful campaign to overcome western colonization.

These shoes are in essence the modern version of the Selate and Barabasso sole shoe. Handcrafted by members of her community, the shoes are made from various locally grown natural plants and weather-beaten tires using Ethiopian traditional techniques and materials. Alemu’s dream is now known internationally as a unique, quality African-based footwear manufacturer. Her company was one of the top 5 finalists for the 2011 Legatum Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship and is currently a top footwear exporter to the US. Although Alemu won’t release the net worth of her company, finalists for this award must earn an annual revenue of $1 million to $15 million. Alemu estimates that by 2016, her company will hit the $10 million mark.

SoleRebels is sold in over 30 countries and through online retailers including Amazon. Styles range from comfortable and colorful slips-ons, lace ups and sandals, and carry a price tag of $20 to $100.

In addition to the Legatum Africa Award, last year Alemu won the “Most Outstanding Businesswoman” award from the African Business Magazine and was selected as one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders. In her entrepreneurial pursuits she has not only succeeded in creating an internationally recognizable company, but in providing jobs for her fellow countrymen.

(Forbes) – Joseph Kabila, Congolese, President, Democratic Republic of Congo:  When he was 29,  Kabila became the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after his father, former President Laurent Kabila, was assassinated in a coup attempt at the height of a cataclysmic civil war. As soon as he took the reins of power, Kabila moved quickly to end the country’s civil war by negotiating peace agreements with rebel forces, and played a lead role in the signing of the historic Sun City agreement in 2002, which ended the war. Kabila consolidated his hold on power in 2006 when he won the country’s first democratic elections in over 40 years. The DRC has the second highest infant-mortality rate and the second lowest nominal GDP per capita in the world, despite its immense deposits of mineral resources. But Kabila believes he can fix it all with more time. He is seeking re-election during November’s Presidential elections.

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by Amma Bonsu

“If Africa misses the current global IT boat, there may never again be an opportunity for rapid wealth creation on the continent.”  This call to action by Herman Chinery-Hesse, one of Africa’s leading techies, captures the desire of Africans around the world to leave their digital mark.  Indeed, recent technological advancements have positioned Africa as an emerging market whose presence can no longer be ignored by the world.  The Atlanta Post looks at the work of Chinery-Hesse along with 6 others who have developed tools to impact their communities at home and abroad.

Herman Chinery-Hesse

They call him Africa’s Bill Gates. His real name is Herman Chinery-Hesse and he is the founder of theSOFTtribe (SOFT), a leading software development firm. Although based in Ghana, SOFT provides advisory services and technology solutions to businesses across the continent.  Chinery-Hesse, a graudate of Texas State University, is passionate about information technology.  In a poignant moment he explained, “Technology is the only way for Africa to get rich. We don’t have proper infrastructure and we can’t compete in manufacturing.  But if you put me behind a PC and tell me to write software for a Chinese customer, then I can compete brain for brain with anyone trying to do the same thing in the U.S.” www.softtribel.com

(Forbes) — Chris Kirubi is a complex man. One of Africa’s richest and most successful businessmen, he’s that rare blend ofDonald Trump, Jeffrey Sachs,Richard Branson and American music star DJ Khaled, in African skin. In business, he’s got the cunning and clout of Trump, the economic intellect of Sachs, the rebellion of Branson, and the musical inclinations of hip-hop act DJ Khaled.  Here’s the reason why: In between running one of Africa’s largest privately held business conglomerates, delivering countless keynote lectures during frequent international economic gatherings, writing a weekly business column for a daily newspaper and mentoring young Kenyan entrepreneurs, Kirubi still finds time to make cameo appearances in Kenyan hip-hop videos, movies, and even hosts a rock show on Capital FM, a Nairobi radio station he owns. He’s the DJ!

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