JA Namibia is proud to have served as Namibia’s national host organization for GEW 2012, but they certainly didn't do it alone. As the national host, JA teamed up with numerous NGOs, educational institutions, and businesses to plan a week of activities for GEW.
Here is a glance at some of the activities that took place during Namibia’s GEW 2012 celebrations:

Entrepreneurship Celebration Seminar

JA Namibia and the rest of the GEW team kicked off Namibia’s GEW activities with an entrepreneurship celebration seminar on Wednesday, 14 November at the Bank of Namibia Auditorium.

The seminar featured several presentations under the theme “the road to success.”

Junior Achiever Paul Mwamba led a role play about the social challenges young people face in deciding to pursue entrepreneurship.

Mr. Sven Thieme of Ohlthaver & List spoke about the role of entrepreneurship in development as well as some of the characteristics of successful 21st century entrepreneurs.

The event also included insights from five entrepreneurs at varying stages along the road to success—Moses Helao, a business owner who began his career as a cleaner at the company; Kennedy Shindodi, who is using his entrepreneurial talents to empower rural communities and contribute to food security; Phillip and Andrew Sikongo, creators of the television game show Taramo Live; and Matthew Hamutenya, Chairperson of Millennium Investment Holdings, whose long entrepreneurial path has seen many successes.

The keynote address was delivered by Ambassador Wanda Nesbitt, the United States Ambassador to Namibia. Ambassador Nesbitt spoke about the importance of entrepreneurship around the world and the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. Following the event, partners showcased their businesses and organisations at a networking market stalls event.

Meet the Lions Competition

Global Entrepreneurship Week 2012 concluded with a glimpse into the future of Namibian entrepreneurship. Five young Namibian entrepreneurs, who had been nominated by mentors or professional acquaintances, presented their businesses at the Meet the Lions Competition. Presented by Lions @ frica, Meet the Lions seeks to recognize Africa’s most innovative new start-ups and link them with a continent-wide network of business mentors.

After the young entrepreneurs presented their businesses and their visions for the future, Kennedy Shindodi, founder of Brain Child Technologies and JA Company Program alumnus, was selected as Namibia’s national winner. Brain Child Technologies, under the brand Okuku Local Produce, seeks to empower rural communities and contribute to food security by employing local community groups to grow and harvest profitable crops. The company then processes the crops, many of which are exported to several countries outside of Namibia.

As the national winner, Kennedy will now represent Namibia at the Africawide competition, scheduled to take place in May 2013.

Creative Business Cup

The creative industries are high growth industries that show great potential for spillover benefits into other industries. This is the idea behind the Creative Business Cup (CBC), a featured event of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The Cup exists to recognize successful companies in the creative industries, including advertising, television, radio, design, entertainment, and many more.

This year, Taramo Live, founded by JA alumni Phillip and Andrew Sikongo, was Namibia’s winner for the CBC. Taramo Live is an innovative television game show in which viewers participate in an SMS competition to ‘grab’ prizes offered by featured sponsors. Although the Sikongos were unable to attend the finals in Copenhagen, Denmark due to difficulties with travel documents, JA is proud of their nomination!

tags: gew highlights, gew namibia