25 Apr 2022

Forbes Under  30  Africa  Summit will help the youth to become development torch  bearers  and  change  agents  as entrepreneurs, says President Mokgweetsi Masisi. 

“It shows the power of hope in our young generations. For Africa, let us make the 21st Century a  remarkable  one  for  the  achievement  of  great feats in human civilisation,” he told summit’s delegates in Gaborone yesterday.

   Dr Masisi said Africa possessed the possibility to produce the highest number of entrepreneurs in this century.

  He therefore stressed the need for Africa’s youth to be cognisant of the many challenges facing the continent.

  They should be resolute in being solution providers and dedicate their time to succeeding in entrepreneurship, he said.

Dr Masisi said the fact that   Botswana  was  a signatory to the  Africa Continent  Free Trade Agreement spoke volumes about the intention to harness a wider market.

Botswana, the President said, was keen to transform its citizenry to become entrepreneurs of great repute.

“The recent establishment of   Ministry of Entrepreneurship means  a  lot  in the  transformation agenda as it intends  to converge a lot of changes  we  have  been  putting in place like  digitalisation, technology, innovation and what ever that breaks the ceiling and provides  opportunity to engage  in business, and the  skills  sets  required  for  startup businesses to prosper,” he said.

He said government was confident that the ministry would be a springboard to the success  of local  businesses.

Saying the ministry’s establishment was delayed by the outbreak of COVID-19 , the President stated that government  was nonetheless not deterred.

A lot of money was invested in the idea with funds channeled into research, innovation, enterprise and entrepreneurial skills development.

By privatizing certain institutions and merging parastatals with related mandates,  government was promoting public private partnership, said Dr Masisi.

In addition, he said, government was working on providing an entrepreneurial environment  that would  enable  private  sector prosperity and was therefore  committed to rooting  out  bottlenecks  that could impact  investor  confidence.

“As government we provide policies and  programmes to capacitate all citizenry for  positive  value chain beneficiation,” he said

President  Masisi said the transformation of Orapa  House  into a digital innovation hub was testament to government’s commitment towards  dominance  in digital space.

Forbes  magazine content director Mr  Randall Lane urged the  young entrepreneurs  to be  frugal and mindful of the fact that ‘ideas’ were  the  currency of  the  21st Century.

“Young people should not  be  clouded by status  and fame but should  be resolute  to achieve their  goals  and  never  give  up on their  dreams. They must also  lean on strong successful people  to harness  their  knowledge and business  skills,” he said.

Mr Lane said the current generation had all it took to transform the economy due to their accessibility to technology at a  young age.

The  current young  generation are digital natives  born with  a  smart phone in their hand and this  which enabled  them to access the  digital world , he said . Ends