- “The time has come that we have energy access for everybody”
Hounded out of his home country, and now stranded in the diaspora, billionaire Strive Masiyiwa is 3,000km away from home working on pouring billions of dollars to create completely free electricity for Kenya’s entire unreached population so that 45million citizens are fully electrified.
Masiyiwa compelled several others of the world’s richest businessmen who include Google founder LarryPage and British billionaire Richard Branson- founder of Virgin Group, which has more than 400 companies, Jacqueline Novogratz (founder and CEO, Acumen-a non-governmental organisation aimed at empowering poor societies, Chris Anderson (curator, TED Conference) Dipender Saluja (Capricorn Investments), Steve Jurvetson (Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Jean Oelwang (CEO, Virgin Unite), Bob Collymore (Safaricom) and Zia Khan of the Rockefeller Foundation where they explored ways to utilise Kenya’s green energy.
The Econet boss announcing this development took a subtle contrast of Zimbabwe against Kenya which nation he said he has always been comfortable about investing in.
He said this in Nairobi as he revealed, “I have always been comfortable about investing in Kenya and encouraging others to invest. There are many people that are here invested in Kenya that I (personally) encouraged to come here.
“A few weeks ago a good friend of mine Richard Branson who I came with here, called me, and said what can we improve access to energy, particularly for the rural people, and …what were my thoughts.
“And he was together with some leading philanthropist like Larry Page, the Founder of Google, and they were saying we want to invest and help small African companies build into big giants in the energy sector; What can we do? So we discussed it and I said look let’s go to Kenya. There are some great things happening in Kenya, it’s a great business environment we have invested here. So that’s why we are here. So the group of us came, its a group of philanthropists. Some of them weren’t able to be here. But you saw some great business people here.
And essentially we are trying to do is to invest philanthropic resources, which is we are not doing it for profit. But we are doing it to help young people set up ventures in the energy sector. We want them to develop a whole new industry. We believe that a new industry is emerging around renewable energy which will be as big as Safaricom, any of these great big companies….
“So we believe what you saw in the mobile sector, ten years from now, energy will be driven in the same way. and the time has come that we have energy access for everybody. The same you have a mobile phone, you should also have free access to energy in our home and for your business. So we are looking at some revolutionary technological ideas which we believe will power Africa into the future.
“This thing is going to draw billions of dollars, I am not talking Shillings, there is a lot of money available. The kind of people who were here with us as you know are very serious entrepreneurs, and that are behind this initiative” said Masiyiwa
7 Replies to “VIDEO:Masiyiwa to Create Free Electricity for Every Kenyan Citizen”
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How many of you knew that this comrade has been a front for ZANU PF since the companies inception. It has been a conduit to launder ZANU plundered loot and continues to launder money on the parties behalf. Do you honestly believe he’d have been allowed to operate this long without any party affiliation or financial link? Dream on idpf you believe he built the company on his own without any link to the party!!! He is a good show man, pretending to live in exile etc. Come on, his ex right hand man Craig Fitzgerald lived in Johannesburg and visited him in London fortnightly. Do you think a billionaire would prefer to live in Zimbabwe as opposed to London…anyone can answer that, he wants his children educated and brought up amongst the civilized Western white folk…not in Africa where his relatives still live in mud huts and learn their school lessons under a tree, and watch how his own comrades have taken the country back 150 years!!!! He is just another deceitful Shona thieving sabpvage who has used his political connections to survive!!!
The man did not just fire the workers because he derived pleasure in just firing them. No prudent businessman would just fire manpower he needs just to fulfil some court ruling. Research and find out why he made the decision to fire the workers, for there is one.
The current political hierarchy is selfish and self centred, they pride in ruling over beggars. If you aspire to better yourself, you become an enemy of the state.
Even if he was, he would only be taking a logical business decision to keep the company afloat by firing the poor folks. If you have unnecessary overheads you cant get rid off due to populist policies and an opportunity to rid of them arises, as a prudent business person you take advantage of rulings like these.
FYI Strive is not the major shareholder for econet wireless…..know your facts
Aiwa zve asi wakanganwa kuti kuti ave paari in Zimbabwe he faced relentless opposition from The Government of Zimbabwe. Listen to how he referred to Kenyatta’s support. Zimbabwe is the worst place to invest ..jealousy
Masiyiwa can pose like a philanthropist but we know that his Zim based companies are among the trigger -happy companies firing workers on the basis of that silly and ill-thought Supreme Court ruling!!….