Kenya’s leading mobile service carrier Safaricom has pledged Ksh.2.9 million ($28,159) in supporting small business founded by the youths in the country.
Safaricom is looking to give financial help to small businesses and scale up their operations. Sylvia Mulinge, the Consumer Business Director at Safaricom, made this announcement during the ‘Be Your Own Boss (BYOB)’ regional summit that was recently held at the Mombasa Sports Club.
“So far over 30,000 young people have turned out for the previous five summits, and we are also glad to have given out Ksh. 2.9 million worth of business support to deserving ventures that have demonstrated potential to grow. It’s motivating to see the great innovative young minds we have in Kenya,” said Mulinge.
Mulinge further says the program intends to sign up at least two million users into the BYOB program by the time they hold their sixth regional summit. However, Mulinge says they already have at least one million youths signed up.
“In a couple of two weeks following Nairobi Summit, we are certain to hit the two million mark,” said Mulinge.
The telecom plans to hold its second BYOB summit in a year’s time. Safaricom’s Blaze program is targeting youths between the ages of 18 and 26 years. Youths who sign up for the program will benefit from tailor-made tariffs from the Safaricom mobile services. It could be in the form of voice calls charge per minute, SMS packages, or mobile data.
The BYOB summit also serves as an opportune moment for the young entrepreneurs to interact and network with other youths from different parts of the country. They can then join each other as fellow entrepreneurs and see how they can synergize with each other for a more significant impact on the market.
The summit could potentially produce business partners or match seller and buyer of a product or service.