 Welkom back to Why In The Morning. It's Tuesday in Akama Kawahili. It's entrepreneurship Tuesday where we get to look at the business world and today's guest is Peter Osumba, the registrar of academics at Zitec University. I'll let him introduce himself, Karibusana. Thank you very much. My name is Peter Osumba, registrar, academics at Zitec University and I'm glad to be in the studio today to have this important conversation about entrepreneurship and academics. Yes, yes, yes. And I want to think that academics has a role in entrepreneurship. Definitely. So maybe you can tell us where you started, how did this journey start for you, like your educational background, how you started this journey? Thank you. I pursued bachela of education at the University of Nairobi as my undergraduate and later on progressed to my MBA at the same University of Nairobi. I'll bias towards operations management. Basically we say the people who get things done, then currently pursuing PhD in business administration, again bias in management science which is related to operations management at Kinyata University. In between I did a postgraduate diploma in leadership and governance. This one I did at Zitec University sometimes back and now my career journey I would say started, I would say way before my bachelas because I always had a passion in teaching my classmates something. And after form 4 I got a chance to actually teach and later on when it came to campus I took up education as you may know that the structures we currently have at high school level not very very strong to align you to a particular specialization. So that's an area which I know the government is doing so much to grow and to empower the career teachers so joint campus. I had a feeling that I really wanted to be in this area but I got the temptation also to flow in the fashion then. The fashion then was to do CPA and become an accountant. I tried but I practiced counting during academic break in campus and that confirmed that I don't need to go in that direction so I came in. So all along I've been in the field of education, I've worked in other institutions before coming to Zitec University and dealing with students. Of course I've done other, I've been in marketing a bit in the organization before I finally settled in career in academics and I must say I'm enjoying this. You're enjoying it. So you're a registrar of academics, that's a term that I've had so many times but the truth is most people don't know what it's all about. Maybe you can tell us some of the duties of registrar of academics or what it entails. Thank you very much. We are the people who work with the student from the time they are very fresh joining university to the day that they have grown up and graduating. So registrar of academics basically is in charge of admissions, admitting students at the university, academic support and advisory, curriculum or partially working together with the heads of department to ensure that we align a curriculum that is useful to the students. I did mention examinations all the way to graduation so that's what the registrar is in charge of and also student records. Okay, so when a student enters your university the first day, so what's the first step in ensuring that this student is actually going to do something that will help him or her in the four years and also after the four years? Thank you very much. We have, during our admission, after admission we give two weeks to students just for career advisory. So it's not an issue of joining and going to class. It's a two week of onboarding, like next week we'll be starting onboarding for May intake. So during this time the students are free to interact with the various faculty members but again our training is anchored on two pillars, entrepreneurship and employability concurrently. So during this time we have sessions when we take students through the soft skills as they prepare to start the academic work in a normal semester schedule. So we have that mentorship, career advisory and also exposing them to the dual world of academics and entrepreneurship. That's what we do in the first two weeks. So for a student who doesn't even know if they want to be an entrepreneur or have a white collar job, what kind of advice do you give to them? Because I'm assuming a first year student really doesn't know where they want to end up at the end of the four years or after the four years. Someone figures out themselves later on. Agree with you and I know when you're in first year you're just excited about the campus experience. Yes. You want experience life in campus and we also take advantage of that when you still have that energy to get to engage you. As you know probably you realize the trend of side hustle is also really taking root among this generation. So somebody enrolling to do IT needs to know what IT entails, the academic part of it. Once you finish and graduate with Bachelor of Science in IT, what is there for you? The world of software development, the world of hardware development. But we also tell you that you can commercialize this knowledge and that's where entrepreneurship comes in. Where yes, you can be employed as an IT expert, IT programmer, software developer, but you also developing software on the sides for various companies and that is entrepreneurship. So the two weeks period is meant to work with you through that journey and open your world and tell you that you should not waste time in the campus experience. You can have fun but you can also be doing something. Yes. You said that your courses are either on entrepreneurship or employment. Will you say that the courses we were white collar jobs more than entrepreneurship? Thank you for the question. They are intertwined. The employment and the employability and entrepreneurship is intertwined. That every course you do, what is entrepreneurship in it? First we have a common unit for everybody who is enrolled in the university of entrepreneurship skills. In terms of entrepreneurship skills, we are currently scaling it to a situation whereby it should culminate into some entrepreneurship project, even a small project of selling probably t-shirts to your campus mates. That's entrepreneurship. So every course you do, there is an element of entrepreneurship. If you are doing nutrition, how can you commercialize that? You do hospitality. How can you be making cakes for your friends on birthdays and their aunts and their grandmothers? Yes. So that's how you enter 20 years. And what role will you say academics has in entrepreneurship? From where I sit, entrepreneurship academics has a role of preparing a background and helping to refine, to help students refine their thoughts about entrepreneurship from a professional perspective. So laying the background. For instance, I mentioned the aspect of each student doing entrepreneurship. So start the culture. The academic has the role of laying the background by starting the culture of entrepreneurship in a white-collar-dominated world. Yes. And is it true that someone can be an entrepreneur without going through school and learning all these skills? Because that's what youth actually prefer right now, that so many people see Kudarao, but they don't think academics has any role in entrepreneurship. So what's your comment on that? Thank you very much. That's like the question that people have asked, that do you think athletes need to go to school if they can just run? I think I would say you are better off if you are an entrepreneur who is educated because you are able then to operate at a different league and you are able then to also add value to your entrepreneurship projects. You can come to a studio like this and present your concept to the world. And if you don't have education, probably you may lack the tools to advance your entrepreneurship agenda and also to promote your entrepreneurship business. So that's what I would say. It's very critical. And do you think that success in academics has any guarantee that you will be a very good entrepreneur if you get your first class honors? No. I would say no because entrepreneurship is a skill that has to be nurtured but also it also goes with passion. You may have your first class but thinking down and going through the hustle of coming up with a concept about business and driving it through is not your thing. You're waiting for someone to come up with a concept then you can come and manage it or go and market it for them. So if the answer is no, that how sharp you are in school doesn't guarantee you to be a good entrepreneur. Maybe you can tell us some of the skills that you need to have so that you can be a successful entrepreneur. Thank you very much for that question and that's a very critical question. There are a number of... I would call them the attributes of an entrepreneur and probably are intertwined with their skills. One of them is the issue of resilience because some of the business you see here in town have gone through a lot of resilience and maybe undocumented research. These people are consulting and thinking through how they can come with that business. That's very important. Of course you should be creative because you need to create your own space in terms of coming up with innovative concepts. It's very important to have a teachable attitude that you can learn from Mamamboga, you can learn from Sambud Rostingmez and try to understand how they are doing their mathematics of going to Wakulima Market to get that maize and how it translates to profit. So you should have that teachable attitude and in line with the teachable attitude you should be able to identify mentors, people who are already doing something around your area and around your area of interest and how probably you can work with them so that you're able to realize what you want to do. And of course discipline is very important. You've mentioned something about mentorship. Maybe you can tell us how important mentorship is in school, in entrepreneurship and in finding a way in the business world. Thank you very much. They say experience is the best teacher and that's where mentorship comes in because you are trying to learn from other people's experiences. So to me mentorship is very important because you are able to be introduced to experiences, skills and knowledge that has been acquired by somebody else who is willing to share it. So mentorship is very, very important. And did you yourself go through mentorship? Ya, I have gone through mentorship at every level at every level of my career of going through mentorship for instance when I joined I would say when I was making a decision to pursue my course at Batchela's level it was a serious struggle it was a serious struggle and I had to go to the registrar then of Nairobi University and seek guidance, what should I do? The desire is to do teaching and something that does with nurturing people the fashion is to be an accountant and he was able to work with me able to link with somebody who is an accountant and able to navigate my way around When I was coming to this role actually I was lucky that again in my network I was introduced to a mentor that one I was introduced by current vice chancellor Prof. Munene to the registrar University of Nairobi then the late Mr. Waweru and I remember our first meeting we started grand regency for four hours and that was impactful so I would encourage anybody aspiring to join a particular area whether it's a trade business or profession to identify a mentor so what are some of the things that I should look for in a mentor when looking for a mentor because there is a list so what are some of those things that I should look for in a mentor? I think this person should be knowledgeable or expertise in your area of interest this person should be willing to share this knowledge that they are having they should be eager about growing other people they should be able to have very respectable relationship with you respectful relationship with you because this is an amacha expert relationship so it's very important that you have respect with that and I think you should be able to identify by their values that's what I mentioned and is it a must that a mentor be someone who is doing something that I want to do like for example if I want to start selling shoes should my mentor be a big shoe seller or I can choose someone from another industry thank you of course if you get that direct relationship it will be the best but what are you looking for when you are starting a business unless you are selling shoes you are looking for business mentorship not necessarily mentorship in the area of selling shoes because you are also likely to grow into other things yes, so I would say that you just open your world first of all it's important to make a decision that you want a mentor then try to identify your goals what you want to achieve with this mentorship then from there you'll be able to identify with what that person is offering so I would say you listen to open your world but align your objectives to the person you are looking up to and apart from having a personal mentor does the school system provide mentorship to the students? yes, you may have heard of a project that the government started in universities and technical institution called the office of the career services luckily we were already into it where the office is in charge of mentorship and is also in charge of linking the students to the industry with the aspect of employability and as well as the aspect of entrepreneurship that you have a student who is doing a project for instance we currently have a particular student who is into fashion design and what the institution did and I think you may even know him because he is a big name it's called a shock creations so what we did during that time and realized that he had interest was to link him with one of the people who were in charge of organizing Mr. Mizitek and this person worked with him and right now is a big shot in terms of designing suits ok, so maybe as we wind up maybe you can tell us if the mentorship and the career advice on entrepreneurship and employment ends after graduation like do you guys follow up on your students after they graduate I think yes we have a tracer study that we do on our graduates and this study seeks to identify number one upon graduation how long do they take to either get employment or entrepreneurship and for those who pursue for instance entrepreneurship how do they grow into that line this is something they just did aside how they are able to grow into develop as entrepreneurs and again we give them opportunities for instance procurement department is more than willing to work with our own students to supply us so we do business with our students ok maybe as we wind up you can advise a student who is watching you right now or a person who wants to get into entrepreneurship what would be your advice especially during this time where we are facing COVID-19 and things are not so easy thank you very much my advice to our dear viewers especially young people watching is that mentorship or identification of mentors has become a primary requirement for either entrepreneurship or for career growth so identify a mentor so make that decision that you want a mentor identify a person who fits your profile or your expectation approach them so that they are able to guide you have so many people willing to share knowledge so I want to assure you that you want me somebody willing to work with you as a mentor from there I believe the mentor will help you to navigate around the mentor will help you to make decisions the mentor will also train you even if you have to if you come to issues of looking for jobs looking for entrepreneurship opportunities and mentors will really develop networks so just tap into existing networks and you will go for it ok thank you so much thank you for creating time and thank you for your words of wisdom thank you very much ok so that was Peter Osumba the registrar of academic at Z-Tech University and he showed all his advice on getting a mentor