The Entrepreneur - Cameroon's Premier Economic & Business Journal

Wasamundi Digital Entrepreneurs Catalyzing the Central African Business Community

The inspiration for the ...name came from the Duala language in the Wouri estuary of Cameroon…..Wasamundi basically means ‘find the world’… In the technology age, this translates to "search for help”.... “In less than two years, we have been able to build a series of products that the world has recognized and is using”…“Our enterprise is currently modestly valued at 250 million FCFA (US$ 500,000), and when we finish our expansion plans into the sub-region of Central Africa it will be valued at 2.5 billion FCFA (US$ 1 million),’’ says Laurence the smiley CEO.

By Stephen Njumbe Sako

Urban planners in Africa are in the mothers-of-all-battles to catch up with the evolution of digital technology. In Cameroon, town planners are breathless catching pace with urban settlers. It is more of an awesome task for technology providers, whether cable television or internet service providers, to circumvent tortuous paths to neighborhoods to reach millions of consumers. Even locating enterprises is an uphill task for consumers wanting particular services. Arriving at hotels, restaurants and homes of friends relies on mundane mouth-to-mouth roadside inquiry. In fact, it was easier for the biblical three wise men to rely on the stars to find the baby Jesus born to the house of David in a manger in Bethlehem. In Cameroon, there is no known directory to get information on the geographical coordinates and location of enterprises in towns and cities.

How to Get Lucky

Scientific proof that you make your own breaks.

By Richard Wiseman

For centuries, people have recognized the power of luck and have done whatever they could to try seizing it. Take knocking on wood, thought to date back to pagan rituals aimed at eliciting help from powerful tree gods. We still do it today, though few, if any, of us worship tree gods. So why do we pass this and other superstitions down from generation to generation? The answer lies in the power of luck.

Live a Charmed Life
To investigate scientifically why some people are consistently lucky and others aren't, I advertised in national periodicals for volunteers of both varieties. Four hundred men and women from all walks of life -- ages 18 to 84 -- responded...Over a ten-year period, I interviewed these volunteers, asked them to complete diaries, personality questionnaires and IQ tests, and invited them to my laboratory for experiments. Lucky people, I found, get that way via some basic principles -- seizing chance opportunities; creating self-fulfilling prophecies through positive expectations; and adopting a resilient attitude that turns bad luck around.

Top Rank African Universities

Lessons for Productivity and Creative Management

UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN, RHODES UNIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND, UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA, STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY OF THE WESTERN CAPE, UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU NATAL, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA, ....UNIVERSITE DE LA REUNION, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO, NELSON MANDELA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY...CAIRO UNIVERSITY...MAKERERE UNIVERSITY,...INSTITUT UNIVERSITAIRE DE FORMATION DES MAITRES DE LA REUNION, UNIVERSITE CHEIKH ANTA DIOP DE DAKAR, UNIVERSITY OF MAURITIUS...UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG, UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE ....

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By Ernest L. Molua

In academia as in business, institutions of Higher Learning in Southern Africa top the charts in rankings and in excellence awards. While West African universities are yet to rise to the challenge of excellence, East African universities are holding firm to their historic position as poles of excellence. From East to West, North to South, managers of African universities are acknowledging the need to excel and compete in teaching, research and outreach. However, like every where else in the developing world, African universities are confronted by enormous challenges, be it financial, infrastructural or human resource. To compete globally, it will require that African policy makers reengineer the management of higher education and overcome the burden of resource inadequacy, mass education and inertia in research and outreach. 

Teenage Entrepreneurs

In March, the 18-year-old Diane Keng launched Internet company MyWeboo.com to help teens manage their digital lives and social-network identities in one place. She is now pitching the company to venture capitalists, and earlier this week presented at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.....Ms. Keng launched her first venture at age 15, when she started a T-shirt screen-printing business and later began a teen marketing-consulting firm. She says she ended up dropping the T-shirt company because it wasn't making enough money, and the second business because she felt she was spreading herself too thin amid activities, and needed to devote time to prepare for the ACT....Yet each morning, Ms. Keng also heads to Cupertino's Monta Vista High School for a schedule of classes that includes Advanced Placement economics and government. In the afternoons, the high-school senior squeezes in varsity badminton practice."My age, my gender and my lack of experience don't deter me from going after what I want for the company," says Ms. Keng, who runs marketing for MyWeboo.com from home and co-founded the venture with her 25-year-old brother, Steven....Ms. Keng has several advantages in pursuing her entrepreneurial ambitions, including her father, a venture capitalist who splits his time between Beijing and Cupertino and gave her $100,000 in seed money....The Valley is filled with teen-entrepreneur legends: Gurbaksh Chahal started online ad company Click Agents in San Jose when he was 16, and sold it for $40 million two years later. He then founded ad network BlueLithium, which he sold for $300 million when he was 25....More

South Africa's first black female winemaker on her vintage year

By Lebo Diseko

In the South African wine industry Ntsiki Biyela is something of a rarity. The country's first black female winemaker when she started out six years ago, Biyela has established herself as an award-winning vintner. Biyela grew up in KwaZulu Natal, 800 miles from the vineyards of Stellenbosch where she now practices her craft. She had never even tasted wine before she enrolled at the University of Stellenbosch on a scholarship, but it was there that Biyela earned a degree in oenology -- the science and study of wine. Lessons were taught in the unfamiliar language of Afrikaans and Biyela's classmates were white, but she stuck with her studies. "It was challenging, it really was," Biyela told CNN. "On graduation day I felt like I had climbed Table Mountain. It was really moving."

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World's Billionaires 2010

Carlos Slim Helu takes No. 1 spot on Forbes World's Billionaires List

For the third time in three years, the world has a new richest man. Riding surging prices of his various telecom holdings, including giant mobile outfit America Movil (AMX), Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu has beaten out Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on earth and nab the top spot on the 2010 Forbes list of the World's Billionaires. Slim's fortune has swelled to an estimated $53.5 billion, up $18.5 billion in 12 months. Shares of America Movil, of which Slim owns a $23 billion stake, were up 35% in a year. That massive hoard of scratch puts him ahead of Microsoft (MSFT) cofounder Bill Gates, who had held the title of world's richest 14 of the past 15 years....More. Also See The World's Richest Women; The World's Youngest Billionnaires

Before They Were Titans, Moguls and Newsmakers, These People Were ... Rejected

Teenagers who face rejection will be joining good company, including Nobel laureates, billionaire philanthropists, university presidents, constitutional scholars, best-selling authors and other leaders of business, media and the arts who once received college or graduate-school rejection letters of their own...Both Warren Buffett and "Today" show host Meredith Vieira say that while being rejected by the school of their dreams was devastating, it launched them on a path to meeting life-changing mentors. Harold Varmus, winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine, says getting rejected twice by Harvard Medical School, where a dean advised him to enlist in the military....More

Why you cannot run a business without risks

By Richard Branson 

I thought it would be helpful to answer the five questions I am asked most often on my travels. They cover advice, inspiration, motivation and regret. Let me know if you have other questions you are keen to know the answers to.

What is the best advice you ever got?

Three gems come to mind. First, an enduring one from my mother, Eve, who always taught me never to look back in regret but to move on to the next thing. The amount of time people waste dwelling on failures rather than putting that energy into another project always amazes me.

I have had fun running all of the Virgin businesses, so I never see a setback as a bad experience; it is just a learning curve. My mother also told me not to openly criticise other people. If she heard me speaking ill of someone, she would make me stand in front of the mirror for five minutes and stare at myself. Her reasoning? All my critical talk was a poor reflection on my own character.

Laying ground for a stable business strategic alliance

By Cathy Mputhia

Today businesses are appreciating the need for forming strategic alliances for a number of reasons. In a highly competitive market, it makes more sense for businesses to unite in a mutually benefiting synergy. Most of the times where one business is deficient in one resource, another business is endowed with that same resource. It could be that your business has the clientele base but lacks technological knowhow or that you have the technological capacity but no adequate clientele base.

Cameroon Business Reporter of the Year

Pierre-Alexis Kaptchouang, la plume d’or du business reporting 2009

Par Ben Nakomo et Bright Lokenge

Il compte désormais parmi les géants du plus beau métier du monde. En une dizaine d’année de carrière, le jeune Pierre-Alexis Kaptchouang a su s’inspirer des réalités de l’actualité quotidienne pour bâtir une carrière qui aujourd’hui témoigne de ses talents. Une carrière de journaliste qu’il embrasse à l’age de 19 ans, encore sur les bancs du lycée. Ses premiers papiers paraissent dans le périodique « L’Ouest Républicain » dirigé par le journaliste chevronné Michel Mombio. Même les conditions précaires et les conditions peu évidentes de la profession ne l’empêcheront pas à braver ce terrain rocailleux qu’il embrasse sur le tas.