KENYA: Entrepreneurs Boot Camp Goes To Kenya

This unique four day event, an accelerator boot camp of sorts for aspiring and budding entrepreneurs, is this year held in Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve between Keekorok Lodge – which just again bagged another World Luxury Hotels Award in last month’s Gala Dinner ceremony at the Harbour Grand in Hong Kong – and the nearby Sandriver Camp.

The Sun Africa Hotels management will in fact provide major logistical back up for the event at their Keekorok Lodge, where an airstrip assures daily connectivity with Nairobi’s Wilson Airport.

A group of 20 eminent speakers has been selected for the event, drawn from a wide cross section of business spanning from high finance to fashion, no doubt all keen to pass on knowledge and help the boot camp participants to grow a network of contacts useful in their daily businesses. From host country Kenya to the UAE, from Nigeria to Mali, from Ghana to the UK and from South Africa to the Lebanon will the speakers also add an international component to the lectures and workshop sessions where they will interact with entrepreneurial start ups.

The Global Entrepreneurship Summit this year took place in Nairobi / Kenya and the key guest and co-host was US President Barack Obama. The summit itself was seen as a major success in raising Kenya, East Africa, continental and global attention levels to both opportunities and challenges ahead in today’s globalized economy and the boot camp is no doubt aimed at building on this success.

The Maasai Mara, part of the greater Serengeti Ecosystem which transcends the border between Tanzania and Kenya, is home to one of the world’s greatest wildlife spectacles, the annual migration of up to 1.5 million wildebeest and zebras spanning from the low grass plains between Serengeti and Ngorongoro to the Maasai Mara. It is here where the herds must cross the often swollen Mara River in order to reach the rich pastures on the other side, running a gauntlet of crocodiles in the river and predators laying in way on both sides. Taking such an event into the heart of the Maasai Mara shows that organizers have come to appreciate both the remoteness, thought to be conducive for undistracted sessions as well as the excellent connectivity from Nairobi to the park, which makes this particular event very special.