 Welkom back. My name is Garanja Alex. You're watching Y254 and as always this is Tuesday and we usually do entrepreneurship. Today, I'm joined by two great men, today a lot of women ladies, today I'm joined by two great men and of course I want to bring them on board. One is called Martin Irungu, he's the co-founder and executive director of Emshaw. Karebusana. Thank you so much. It's great to have you here. Thank you. You'll be talking of course later on. That is the grassroot. Alright, who is the communication lead in terms of technology? Yeah, in terms of communication technology. Alright, so what's up? Karebusana. How have you here? Thank you. You've been here again? Yes, we were here last year at a time like this. We were discussing the same agenda and the grassroot of leadership summit, which we did last year. So amazing. So, we're here to talk about the grassroot summit. It's about entrepreneurship and growing the women. So let's begin this. How do you think the field is for women right now? I would say like the conversation around women and social entrepreneurship is a growing conversation. We have the ecosystem ready to support upcoming women in entrepreneurship. And I think that's where our organization comes in handy. And that's why this year when we were organizing for entrepreneurship summit, we themed it around women. Specific theme is demystify the place of women social entrepreneurship in the ecosystem. And I think it's a growing trend. They have an opportunity and all the players are ready to support them. What are some of the mysteries you want to demystify about women and entrepreneurship? I would say first is to say like they have the potential. They have a bigger role. I would say in a household if a woman is empowered, you say the whole household is empowered. And I think it's upon us now to say that they have a potential. They have the skills. They have the ability and the systems must come in to support them. That is the basic and what will be demystified. Alright, women have been so much vocal especially in the country today. We are very young women who are CEOs. They are all over the entrepreneurial field. What do you think about that? Is it creating some sort of competition? Yeah, first of all, I just want to say Kenya. Kenya is one of those ecosystems in Africa that is really considered immaturing. And once you find that women and young girls are getting into spaces that previously were predominantly somehow an exclusion for men, then that is a good sign. So in terms of innovation, in terms of entrepreneurship, at the grassroots level, we are looking at how can we sit down and highlight some of the problems that have been met in making the women become competitive. We are looking at skills. We are looking at how the innovation mindset. We are looking at knowledge. We are looking at networks. We are looking at finding opportunities. We are looking at the policy. We are looking at capacity. So it's a lot of things that are going to be discussed and highlighted during the 2019. But most importantly, I think that the ecosystem is really much right. Yes, focusing on not only the women. Elps also serves for youth. What are you up for for youth? What is the install for young people? Just to give a quick highlight of why our existence is in the ecosystem is that we are a youth-driven organization that started in 2015 and our model is about exaggerating the potentials the young people hold and believing that should we harness their potential, we will be able to have less of the challenges we are facing, talk about an employment crisis and with the understanding that we have the youth crisis which is affecting not only Kenya but Africa at lunch, we have a model program to around innovation, around entrepreneurship and basically our focus is how do we send out young people to the communities they come from to innovate around solutions that would serve communities and create opportunities for themselves. So we have also a network around East Africa and a bigger network in Africa and also we also do a bit of an extended program with the global network, say the European Youth Network basically to create opportunities for young people to be able to exchange and revolve around building opportunities for themselves. I want us not to do so much on the young people because this year your theme is women. Women have got a lot of potential and most people say it's untapped potential. Do you think there's so much of untapped potential in terms of the girls and the women that we have today? I would say that's why we are on edge this year because based on our last year's conversation we realized like among the disadvantages that we hold in the ecosystem is either people are not able to access the needed technology or the needed resources say to do a startup but also in terms of how do we understand the differences that exist even in terms of gender and then the fact that the world also is calling upon among women to be able to come out boldly and be competitive with the counterpart. So what we believe is equally women and men have the same opportunities and now this year is just to bring out in volumes just to dictate and say well women in the ecosystem have the potential they have the skills the resources that is needed is still in the ecosystem how do we harness that put them on the table and also put out their voice and bring in the policies and opportunities that will bring them together. Great, are we at par in terms of the level at which entrepreneurial field is growing in terms of women in Africa in relation to Kenyans women? Pardon when you say how are we really on target are we really looking and focusing on something are we really aiming? Yes and I think like I said the Kenyan ecosystem has been very promising especially in how it looks at women and for GS our concept has always been yes we have entrepreneurs in urban centres we have entrepreneurs across the world that have so much access to resources and opportunities a typical entrepreneur in Nairobi is somebody who has a working distance to a hub where they can go and collaborate and work on projects with different people but there is this entrepreneur who is called the grassage entrepreneur this is somebody from the counties this is somebody outside Nairobi so most of the time you find that these type of entrepreneurs are neglected and that is why we felt like as GS we need to highlight and just coming back to your question I believe that we as an ecosystem are doing quite a lot to make sure that the girls actually are able to complete on the same level as the men entrepreneurs and if there are any gaps if there are any opportunities for improvement then that's the reason why we are having GS 2018 to bring success stories to the table women in the social impact spaces who have already achieved had so much success within the industries come to this summit as panellists, as mentors, as trainers as workshop leaders and talk to other aspiring young women so that they can see if so and so was able to become very successful in renewable energy for example it means energy after all is not a preserve for men women also have a space in it if somebody else has an amazing social impact start up within health probably a young entrepreneur who is a woman can be able to see and look up to that and be able to find inspiration find people to network find people to tap for opportunities you mentioned something about knowledge and information all along I want to ask these you are talking about the grassroots and we are talking about women the young ladies that are so much into the interiors how aggressive are you in terms of reaching to those who are so much in the interior the rural areas so currently it hasn't been an aggressive attempt by the ecosystem that is why GS 2019 will be seeking to highlight those gap opportunities and bring out the voice of those grassroots interior and tell the ecosystem yes you are doing an amazing job in Nairobi and we acknowledge that but how about you go down to Kajiadu where M South was running a project in digital literacy in digital literacy skills and be able to create the same impact so that this entrepreneur this woman leader from a grassroots is not feeling neglected alright we are talking about GS what are they talking about I would like you to bring people on board probably what is it all about when is it happening maybe just as I come to your point when you mentioned about aggressiveness and what the organization is doing we have a model which is called the digital laboratories they are young it's a small kind of hub at the community level so when you go to a place like Kajiadu we have a digital lab in Kajiadu we have a digital lab in Makueni we have a digital lab in Kitui and our main target are women and we do 60% women participation in digital literacy training and entrepreneurship that is how we are focused and looking into women empowerment and entrepreneurship and now bringing in GS for the viewer to understand us better we understand that we have the entrepreneurship summit that brings together the big players the world bank the world economic forum everyone together and they discuss the entrepreneur with that understanding we came to understand that the young entrepreneur are not given an opportunity to speak and then the ecosystem players listen so it's a contrast of the same and what we do is a free to attend for young entrepreneurs and this time round we are dimming around women entrepreneurs and then the concept is about we will be doing a workshop a 3-day workshop for young entrepreneurs female entrepreneurs this time round and we have a bias because in women in tech because again we are also looking into how do we encroach the systems that have been predominant led by men in the ecosystem so it's an annual event it has a different theme this time round it's around women in social entrepreneurship and we have a collaboration with an organization called Women's World Wide Web it's a global organization it's a global champion for women in tech and entrepreneurship they are actually sponsoring most of our activities including the workshop that is what we do we channel the young people in the ecosystem by bringing in players who are ready to support who are ready to understand what are we doing and this time round it will be in Kenyatta University this is where we did last year that is where we will be doing the workshop and the summit will be on 19th of September great and that's amazing probably we hope to be there also so as we can see what women have to offer for us I want us to come together and look at the government sustainable development agendas the nine of them do you think women are really including in all this in terms of inclusivity I think yes and I want to in individual capacity of course appreciate what government is doing and different development partners and different organizations the place of women in some of this development development agendas I just want to mention a lot of ongoing progresses within the big for agenda for example we know and when you come to the GS 2019 you admit an amazing panelist of women 100% women who are doing amazing work within the big for agenda for example one of the panelist probably could be somebody from renewable energy which supports manufacturing we have people who are doing a lot in education especially using technology tools to support how students in the rural areas and the scales and I think just looking about has been a lot of progress let's probably there's probably a young lady at home who is watching and she's just like I wanted to begin this company but then I'm apparently facing too much of challenges what would you advise someone who is beginning a company I would say when you say actually starting a company it sounds so huge but I would have believed in what our model propagates because we always have when we are doing the summits or any other convening that we do here in town it's mainly to tell the young people that it starts with an idea and that is why in our training and our curriculum we talk about ideation the ideation process how you do your ideation and to understand what to offer as a solution because what we say a startup or what people call a company