In a push to generate interest in the idea of African enterprises as investment opportunities, the sponsors of an East African entrepreneurial award competition have just released a documentary online about the selection process for the inaugural Legatum Pioneers of Prosperity Africa prize – which resulted in awards totaling USD 350,000 to six up-and-coming, home-grown companies. The prize was funded by Legatum, an international private investment group, and the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic organization, and also involved partners OTF Group, a competitiveness consulting firm; the S.E.VEN Fund, a non-profit that promotes enterprise-driven solutions to poverty; and the Inter-American Development Bank, a multi-lateral financial institution.
Entitled “Unlocking Africa,” the hour-long documentary follows the competition’s finalists – eleven entrepreneurs from Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda plucked from an applicant pool of 453 – as they navigate their way through the finale round, which occurred last November. Each one makes a presentation about his or her business to a panel of judges from the sponsoring organizations, who then duly grill the subject on various aspects of the business – cash flow, pricing, market size, competitive environment, and so on. The jury deliberates, and in the end the grand-prize winner and five other winners are announced at a ceremony attended by the president of Rwanda himself, Paul Kagame.
The grand prize recipient turns out to be AAA Growers of Kenya, a company that grows, processes, and packs vegetables for export to Europe. It receives a USD 100,000 prize, and the other five winners each take home USD 50,000.
As the documentary narrates the turns of the competition, it is interspersed with snapshots of each of the finalist companies. Ranging from a banana wine production facility to an interactive media firm to an international outsourcing call center, the businesses all seem to share some common traits: they are relatively young (none were founded before 1991), and they are imbued with their founders’ ideals of socially responsible enterprise. Each of these entrepreneurs is seeking a sustainable model that can simultaneously generate profits and give back to the community, but the larger subtext is that they want to see their homelands break free of the cycle of poverty.
The sentiment is drawn out in no uncertain terms by President Kagame: “It is becoming increasingly clear that entrepreneurship is the most sure way of development,” he says, “because entrepreneurship unlocks people’s minds and allows innovation to take place…. I think this is simply the backbone of everything.”
This thought is precisely the driving theme of the competition, and the documentary’s interviews with the judging panel serve as confirmation. For instance, Dr. Charles Harper, Jr., vice president of the John Templeton Foundation, speaks to a belief that foreign aid in Africa has and continues to foster a culture of dependency that does nothing to discourage poverty – whereas budding entrepreneurship on the continent is heralding the long-awaited promise of economic development.
The Legatum Group, founded in 2006 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is primarily a commercial investment firm that is also involved in advancing sustainable development. Its Web site does not maintain financial information about the organization.
The John Templeton Foundation was established by influential stock investor Sir John Templeton in 1987 and has an endowment of USD 1.1 billion. It has committed USD 249 million in grants since inception and paid out USD 44 million in 2005 alone. It funds research in numerous different areas, including natural and human sciences, philosophy and theology, character development, freedom and free enterprise, gifted education, and world religions.
The OTF Group was founded as the Country Competitiveness practice within the Monitor Company, a consulting firm, in 1991 before it was spun off in 2000. It leverages proprietary technologies to help show clients how to be competitive or foster competitiveness in emerging economies. Financial information about the group is not available on its Web site.
The S.E.VEN Fund (Social Equity Venture Fund) was initially funded by a seed grant from the John Templeton Foundation and was co-founded by Michael Fairbanks, the founder of the OTF Group. It also receives funding from Legatum and the Inter-American Development Bank. As a non-profit, it provides monetary, organizational and intellectual support for the study of enterprise-based solutions to poverty.
The finalists:
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AAA Growers, Kenya (Grand Prize Winner): Growing, processing, and packaging vegetables for export to Europe.
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Enterprise Urwibutso, Rwanda (Winner): Premium banana wines; also construction, cattle farming, brick and tile production, bakery, restaurant, school facility, and a cultural troupe of workers.
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Good African Coffee, Uganda (Winner): Coffee from local farmers for export to global markets.
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Kencall, Kenya (Winner): International outsourcing call center.
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Tele-10, Rwanda (Winner): TV and radio broadcasting, Internet and mobile phone video broadcasting, and Internet service provider.
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Virtual City, Kenya (Winner): Automated supply-chain tracking.
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Color Creations, Kenya: Business advertising and branding.
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3Mice, Kenya: Interactive media, including development of Web sites, intranets, and portals.
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Business Communication Solutions, Rwanda: Mobile public pay phones in Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Also call centers for Rwandair and Electrogas, and a taxi service.
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Cellulant, Kenya: Mobile phone interactive services, including ringtones, news, entertainment, movie listings, and mobile banking solutions.
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Semat Productions, Uganda: Radio station and radio advertising content.
By Stephen Son
Additional Resources:
S.E.VEN Fund: Pioneers of Prosperity Documentary
Pioneers of Prosperity: “Legatum Awards USD 350,000 Prize for African Entrepreneurship”
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