A local agency has emerged the winner of the Fourth Students Entrepreneurship Awards. June Syowia of Beiless Group agency, a digital story-telling agency, was top by the Kenya Chapter of the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), which hosted the awards last week.
The agency emerged the winner after edging out 10 semi-finalists and 5 finalists at Dusit D2. EO, a global network of business owners said that the agency will represent Kenya at the Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards (GSEA) finals in Frankfurt, Germany on April 26, 2017.
The winners will are also expected to compete with the world’s top student entrepreneurs to win a cash price 20,000 dollars and a total package of 150,000 us dollars in cash and donated business service. To be eligible to participate in GSEA, applicants must be full time students running a business generating over Sh 50,000 in revenue and operational for at least six months.
GSEA provides students with the opportunity to form lasting relationships with entrepreneurs, and over the years participating students have gone on to create thousands of jobs and generate millions of shillings in revenue. Following a rigorous selection process, semi-finalists and finalists had the once-in-a-lifetime.Opportunity to present their business and entrepreneurial journey to a panel of judges made up of EO members, industry and thought leaders.
Akshay Shah, the Managing Director of Silafrica Plastics & Packaging and the 2016/7 GSEA Kenya Chair said GSEA represents one of four stages in EO’s entrepreneur ecosystem.”We believe in the entrepreneurship journey, which can start at any age with just a spark of Imagination and tons of courage,” said Shah.
Shah added that there is a lot to learn from these winning student entrepreneurs on how to be resourceful, and a lot of inspiration for what they manage to achieve at this age while engaged in a full time under-graduate university education.
Shah said that Kenya received the 2nd highest number of applications in Africa in 2017.
Sanjeev Kumar, CEO of M Holdings, the event’s main sponsor, said that “partnering with EO presents an interesting opportunity to work with like-minded people as our very own Organization started out as an entrepreneurial venture.”
EO is a global network exclusively for entrepreneurs. It is made up of over 12,000 influential business owners spread across 160 chapters in 50 countries, founded in 1987.
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