THERE ARE MANY SUCCESS STORY IN EAST AFRICA

Lesson for Diaspora you can use your life experience here and get rich in your promised land Africa .Ashish was refugees in London but his family decided to go back to promised land Africa to catch the moment of his life . No one can develop Africa but us Africans .Africa’s private sector will be the leading player in contributing to the continent’s economic transformation. “We are now the world’s fastest growing region,




Ashish J. Thakkar is only 29, but in less than two decades, the Ugandan-born maverick entrepreneur has accomplished what only few attain in their lifetime. Thakkar began his entrepreneurial journey over 15 years ago as a high school student in Uganda where he sold computers to his schoolmates and friends. That small trading operation snowballed into the Mara Group, a diversified conglomerate with approximately $100 million in revenues, according to Thakkar.
Mara has tentacles in everything from Real Estate and tourism to financial services, information and communications technology, renewable energy and manufacturing. The group’s operations span 16 countries in four continents, including Asia. And lest you forget, he didn’t inherit anything; he built it all from scratch.

He is also an astronaut. Thakkar is the only African who shelled out the $200,000 ticket fee for Virgin Galactic’s first flight to Space. When the trip eventually comes through, he’ll be the second African astronaut after South African software millionaire Mark Shuttleworth.
Ashish Thakkar recently granted me an audience, during which he recounted his earliest days as an entrepreneur, highlighted his successes, rendered his thoughts on corporate social responsibility and mused on his African legacy.

Take me back to your earliest beginnings as an entrepreneur, right to the time you founded the Mara Group.

My family and I moved to Kampala when I was just fourteen, having been made refugees after the Rwandan genocide two years after moving to Rwanda from the UK. It was when I started school in Kampala that I started selling computers to friends and to the school. That was really when the seed was sown, or perhaps when it came to fruition! After some intense convincing, my parents agreed to let me start my own business on the condition that I would go back to school if it didn’t work out. The rest, as they say, is history.

Tell me about the Mara Group. You started out as a small IT shop, but today you’re a pan-African conglomerate with interests in everything from real estate to financial services, tourism and BPO services. Walk me through the evolution of the group and all the companies in the group

We started in IT, then diversified into packaging and property development, and through the years have ventured into infrastructure, asset management and now agriculture. Mara Foundation, our non-profit arm, focuses on entrepreneurship and education. The group places equal emphasis on internal growth and structure and on strategic partnerships with global experts in various fields.

You are still very young. At 30, you’ve achieved so much. What has been the catalyst for you success

I’m not 30 yet.