The Open Space Interaction Key in Fostering Entrepreneurship.
Last week I had an opportunity to visit the MintHub in Westlands for an interactive session with other entrepreneurs organized by Mama Ventures. Despite arriving late due to lots of commitments, I had an opportunity to observe the energy in the young people passionate about entrepreneurship. I loved the idea that there is a free exchange of information whilst the diversity of members and their interests.
The MintHub just like the iHub along Lenana road in Kilimani is about promoting conversations in an open space to breed the best of ideas. A drive deeply rooted and promoted by Mama Ventures on the Minthub open space. I have been to the iHub for a few sessions, the last one being in December last year. In fact I had an opportunity to do a short presentation about our enterprise and I could observe the excitement and yearn in the audience. This time round I felt it.
The short opportunity we were given at the Minthub to come up with and do a short pitch about a random idea could have proved challenging at personal level. But then we were doing it at group level and this gave me an opportunity to see things from other people’s points of view.
I felt obliged to state that the age of “selfpreneurship” is over as I had stated in an earlier article. When you come together and speak about things that matter is the time when we begin to change the world and make it better. I strongly subscribe to the school of thought that there is power in a community set to do great things. Mark the word community.
Sitting there and listening to a brainstorm presentation about digital skills and opportunities on the internet, I felt that I needed to carry a number of my friends and tell them, “hey buddies, here is a limitless piece of land that we can virtually build and mine without exploitation.” The internet as I have always said is the future and as entrepreneurs, our work is to sniff opportunities and pool resources towards such causes. Where do you get the finances, skills and motivation? In other people’s stories. That is what the open space interaction does.
Such an approach aligns itself with the SDG’s. Goal number 9 for instance is about industry, innovation and infrastructure. The goal aims to use technological progress to help address global challenges such as creating jobs and becoming more energy efficient. And as the world becomes connected and prosperous thanks to the internet, the more we are able to benefit from wisdom and contributions of people everywhere on the world.
The goal states, “the more we invest in innovation and infrastructure, the better off we’ll be. Bridging the digital divide, (especially now that more than 4 billion people lack internet access, vast of them being in the developing countries) promoting sustainable industries and investing in scientific research and innovation are all important way to facilitate sustainable development.”
At the core of this is people. The youth who are the majority of the world population are the ones looked upon to end the challenges facing our planet. To do this we need to meet and talk about the issues. Just like Steve Jobs, we meet and talk and become a community of the crazy ones, the misfits, the daring and believers set out to change the world. Definitely we will change the world.
When this happens, it is becomes possible to make hundreds and thousands of entrepreneurs at the forefront of tackling world challenges cutting across health, education, poverty, gender disparity, lack of access to clean drinking water, hunger, lack of broadband services and many more others.
Opportunities are everywhere. Among them for the internet enthusiasts is online marketing and promotion for products, big data and data analytics, online customer/client management services, online design, online content generation to online financial management services. Then there is value addition in agriculture as well as many other opportunities in manufacturing, green energy, health, government policies and professional services provision among the many. The market is right in our hands; the phone. In Facebook, twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Reddit, Pinterest and all other online platforms.
Lacking the motivation to start out shouldn’t be an excuse for that is the reason for the open space interaction. Walk out there and meet other like-minded individuals and interact with them. Draw motivation from them and perhaps partner up with them and make this world a better place. Use such platforms as Mint Hub, iHub and the many others to learn what others are doing and join in the movement.
Ankur Jain started out Kairos Society and is leading out thousands of young people to meet and share ideas that are aimed at tackling the world’s greatest challenges. The ultimate goal is to improve as many lives as possible. Who doesn’t want to be part of such a community?
That is the equivalent of the Home Brew Computer Club that gave birth to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak’s brainchild; Apple. It is the largest company by market capitalization today courtesy of the open space platform for sharing ideas.
John G Smale, the former Procter and Gamble CEO remarked in a 1986 address while celebrating P & G’s 150th birthday that, “Our commitment must be to continue the vitality of this company – its growth in physical terms and also its growth as an institution – so that this company, this institution, will last another 150 years. Indeed, so it will last through the ages.”
I hope the MintHub, iHub, Kairos Society and other like-minded institutions – including the members – grow not only in size alone but also impact society so that we can make this world a better place for all the centuries to come.
Our impacts should outgrow our legacies.
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Copyright @ 2018.
