"...There are many different ways that you can start a business without burying
yourself under a mountain of debt, paying sky high interest rates on business
loans or handing over stake and ownership to venture capitalists or other
investors.You have to have money to make money.

Whether you are able to use money that you have saved in the past or you
need to rack up a temporary balance on your credit cards, there are plenty of
places to find money. You just need to figure out which method best suits the
needs of your business.

1. Personal Savings: This is the place to start when it comes to
bootstrapping a business. Dip into your personal account and fund your business
from money that you have saved. There may not be enough for this to be the sole
form of financing but, if there is enough, you won’t have to worry about any
debt or interest rates on loans.

2. Friends and Family: Ask your family and friends if they have any extra
money that they would like to invest. Agree on a payment plan, with interest,
and offer them future stake in the business if it turns out to be a
success..."

"...Mozambique is the world's 36th-largest country.

Mozambique's first inhabitants were San hunter and gatherers, ancestors of
the Khoi san peoples. Bantu-speaking peoples, who were predominantly iron
workers and farmers, began migrating into the area now known as Mozambique from the distant Niger Delta. Soon, scattered kingdoms began to arise, including
those of the Shona, which extended from present-day Zimbabwe into Mozambique,
and the legendary kingdom of Monomotapa, southwest of present-day Tete.
Meanwhile, from around the 8th century AD, sailors from Arabia began to arrive
along the coast.

Economic reform has been extensive. More than 1,200 state-owned enterprises (mostly small) have been privatized. Preparations for privatization and sector
liberalization are underway for the remaining parastatals, including
telecommunications, electricity, ports, and railroads. The government frequently
selects a strategic foreign investor when privatizing a parastatal.
Additionally, customs duties have been reduced, and customs management has been
streamlined and reformed. In 2006 Mozambique exported U.S. $2.43 billion worth
of goods and imported U.S. $2.82 billion worth of goods. Support programs
provided by foreign donors and private financing of foreign direct investment
mega-projects and their associated raw materials have largely compensated for
balance-of-payment shortfalls.

The nation's latest big investment project is a hi-tech $1.2bn ($660m) gas
plant, situated in the middle of bushland in the south of the country. The
project is owned and run by the South African energy company Sasol.The
government has privatised the port and boasts of its ability to attract big
foreign investors, such as Sosol and BHP Billington, which has built a $2bn
aluminium plant just across the bay. Mozambique has been classified as one of
the major destinations for investment in Africa.

The twin pillars of Mozambique's foreign policy are maintenance of good
relations with its neighbors and maintenance and expansion of ties to
development partners..."

"...Executive coaching is a common leadership development practice among
business leaders all over the world.

Coaching can be defined as “an ongoing relationship that helps clients
produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Through the
process of coaching, clients deepen their learning, improve their performance
and enhance overall quality of life..."

He answered, “It’s coming from the bottom or primarily from the citizen media type, the bloggers, who are covering Africa to an extent it has never been covered before. There’s strong belief that the rest of the world will catch up as this process accelerates.”

Emeka understands the vital role that authentic, uncompromising, voices from Africa that are expressed through blogs play. Probably because he is a energetic blogger himself. It is wonderful that there is a healthy mix of bloggers amongst the TED Fellows. I’ll highlight the KBW members who are here apart from myself; Afromusing, Bankelele, Kenyan Pundit and White African. Ndesanjo is here as well running things on his home ground. Outside KBW Jea Brea and Andrew Heavens are here too.

There are couple of other Kenyan bloggers who have promised to send me their URLs and I will share them as soon as I get them. We also have a number of bloggers from other countries and I will do the same with the links.

KBW members let me assure that your blogs have a wider readership then you may imagine. I have met some people here that have never been to Africa before but read the KenyaUnlimited aggregator regularly. Many of the other Africans here talk about the power of the Kenyan blogs on the internet and are inspired to go out and start their own blogs and aggregator. Perhaps we should look out for NigeriaUnlimited, MaliUnlimited, etc soon!

At some point in the next few days we will sit down and brainstorm about the African Bloggers’ Conference. Please feel free to share any thoughts you have on this with us.

TEDGlobal2007 | TEDGlobal

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I won’t do a session by session blow of what is happening on stage. For that I suggest you read Ethan’s blog. Ethan must be running a dual core processor brain. The man sits in the hall and blogs in real time like an episode of 24 taking in the talk, digesting it and laying out coherent blog posts all at the same time. Go there for a blow by blow account of what is happening. White African also has good posts on the sessions, with photos. If only all my roommates in life were this helpful eh, doing all the work while I sit there engrossed on what is happening on the stage.

Instead I will attempt to share a variety of titbits from around the conference.

Rokia Traore kicked things off with a song of welcome from Mali. Rokia has a fantastic, powerful and moving voice and set the tone for a wonderful conference. African, confident, powerful, human.

Euvin Naidoo quotes the philosopher who said, “The only dark thing about Africa is our perception of Africa.” This is a theme that is to remain central throughout the day.

Carol Pineau of Africa Open for Business fame, continues this theme as she shares with the stories of entrepreneurs across the continent. One of those featured in Carol’s talk is Mohammed Olan the CEO of Somali airline Diallo Airlines. This guy is happy that Somali doesn’t have a government because he doesn’t have to deal with government corruption. What I found most interesting about Carol’s talk was two tag clouds she shared with us. One showed what people in the west thought Africans wanted, and the second one showed what people in Africa want for themselves. I’ll try to find them and post them later.

Zeray Alemseged a palaeontologist from Ethiopia responsible for finding Selam a 3.3 million year old 3 year old girl. (Yes that sentence makes sense). He shared that the key thing as far as he was concern was to, “promote a positive African attitude towards Africa”. It is just like your parents used to tell you, you have to love yourself before anyone else will love you.

I am not much of cinema and movie person but Newton Aduaka blew me away with the short clips he showed of his films. Maybe I am a movie person and I’ve just been watching the wrong films. He has film coming out called Ezra about child soldiers in Sierra Leone that looks brilliant. Andrew Dosunmu shared some interesting clips as well.

But a conference isn’t a conference without some controversy and on Day One of TEDGlobal it was Andrew Mwenda – v – Bono. Andrew is a Uganda journalist and free speech activist that has seen jail time in Uganda for his beliefs. Andrew is against foreign aid in a big way. He feels makes Africa governments lazy as they do not have to invest in their entrepreneurs. If there was no aid and governments had to pay their way they would show a lot more interest in the people in their countries trying to generate wealth. As a Kenya trying to set up a business I can relate to that oh to well.

Bono on the other hand spends a lot of time campaign for aid to Africa to be increased. He also campaigns for debt cancellation and fair trade. Bono likes to stress the links between Africa and Ireland. Well.

It made for a lively session to say the least.

Youssou N’dour didn’t make it unfortunately but we did not have a chance to miss him as Rokia came back with her band and blew us away. My goodness, that woman’s voice, style and substance is unbelievable.

TEDGlobal2007 | TEDGlobal

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