[kictanet] iLabAfrica Presentations

[robert yawe]

Hi,

I was fortunate enough to attend the iLabAfrica student presentation on Friday 
last week, it was a very refreshing experience and look forward to when they 
move to the incubation stage.

Over the years I have been able to provide rudimentary incubation facilities to 
various organisations which have been able to graduate and gone off on their own 
which is a very rewarding experience.

My recommendations to students is that they need to use the university 
environment to test their concepts just like was done with facebook and other 
similar startups.  The university environment if more forgiving than the world 
outside, all that is required will be hosting facilities which already exist.  

After the concept has been tested at Strathmore they can increase the reach by 
going across to other universities, that statement just gave me a deja-vu moment 
(think facebook), a population of over 300,000  students which offered a very 
large market.

All applications presented can be launched and run at the university, in 
addition the teams should look for ways to raise initial capital from the 
student body as a way to horn their negotiation skills.  The University can 
actually run a stock exchange able to raise seed capital for the projects while 
also giving the students experience in alternative funding sources.


It is none the less a commendable effort by Strathmore University and I look 
forward to seeing more such initiatives across all other Universities.

Regards
 Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya


Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696
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