11 Feb 2021

Youth  business enthusiast, Mr Lesego Muswere has scooped third position in a global competition dubbed BeeUp.

The competition is facilitated in Switzerland and uses a digital platform to connect businesses with smart and talented people in order to generate creative approaches to complex challenges that companies face.

In an interview recently, Mr Muswere, who is also a final year business student at the University of Botswana, said he was ecstatic over the win as he was the only participant from Botswana.

The 22-year-old said more than 124 individuals took part in the competition internationally, including professionals in the field of business management. He managed to attain third position as an individual while the winner and runners-up participated as teams.

For his winning proposal, Mr Muswere said he worked on a customer type indicator research project, the brainchild of the University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland and the University of St. Gallen, to produce an assortment of innovative approaches to multi-faceted challenges that companies faced.

“I had a once in a life-time opportunity to work on a business proposal with the founder and chief executive officer, Mr Michael Czarniecki. The proposal focused on an ICT company that was stuck in the middle, and we were assigned to find potential customer segments and develop a value proposition for the company,” he said.

Mr Muswere also acknowledged his lecturer, Mr Tendy Matenge, who introduced him to online business simulations back in 2019 and 2020 for his success in the competition.

He said there were challenges in his journey, citing pressure from school since he was on the verge of completing his degree as well as trying to figure out the customer segment for the company that he had to solve a problem for.

Mr Muswere was excited about the opportunities that his achievement would afford him and hoped his win would encourage other youth to participate in similar international competitions.

 

“I believe that the African child has more potential to conquer the world and they only need to be nurtured. It is time that we also take up our space in the international market,” he said