Last week, Basil David Anthony, a British-Ghanaian and internationally recognized award-winning entrepreneur, urged budding Ugandan entrepreneurs to focus more on creating than seeking jobs.
“I believe that we should encourage more job creators than job seekers.” “Everybody will say government,” he said at the Onomo hotel in Kampala.
Anthony is in Uganda to vouch for Africa’s next young millionaire program. He cautioned young people against focusing solely on ICT and technology, as the market is already crowded with heavily capitalised individuals and the rich. Instead, he advises the youth to think beyond technology.
He stated that the ICT era had come to an end. “The ICT era began when I was in the fifth grade, learning about hardware. That period began when I was 10 years old. I’m 38 years old now. That was 28 years ago. If ICT is your focus, you’ll succeed; you’re entering a pool with millions of sharks. Can you swim better than they do? So, entrepreneurs first of all need to be truthful to themselves.”
“How many people do we expect the government to employ? It’s not possible. The government is a public sector entity. It’s the private sector. You go anywhere in this world; the private sector is what drives the economy,” he said.
Anthony, the recipient of the 2024 Africa Forty Under 40 award and one of Ghana’s top 50 young chief executives in 2023, expressed his enduring passion for entrepreneurship.
“How about I create a foundation that solely circles the concept of entrepreneurship? I have developed reality shows about Africa’s next young millionaire and other related topics, but they are not particularly youth-oriented.”
“We need to have content that appeals to the youth for them to get attracted. When we bring them in, we introduce them to the benefits, the process and the journey of entrepreneurship, and we need to tap into them and shine that light in them,” he said.
The continent’s biggest problem is always gravitating towards what entrepreneurs hear is working. “Trust me, if you sit with indigenous, authentic entrepreneurs and you find out how they got into what business has made them who they are today, most of them will tell you it wasn’t something they heard that was going on and everybody was following it. It’s something they identify with, something unique, something that was difficult, that just seemed like impossible,” he noted.
Anthony, the founder and CEO of Modern Floors, a UK-trademarked flooring brand that wholesales and retails high-quality and affordable artificial carpet grass, AstroTurf, vinyl (PVC/SPC) tiles (LVT), carpet tiles, adhesives, waterproofing and other indoor and outdoor flooring products used for both residential and commercial spaces, said he is here to look for partnerships in the real estate sector.
