Commonwealth Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs-East Africa (CAYE-EA) |23 June 2017

 Seychelles to host next year’s summit

Seychelles has been chosen to host next year’s summit of the Commonwealth Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs-East Africa (CAYE-EA).

This was decided upon by the executive committee after a meeting at the end of the inaugural CAYE summit for young entrepreneurs held in Nairobi, Kenya at the end of last month.

Seychelles was represented by the Seychelles National Youth Council (SNYC) chief executive Alvin Laurence and Luther Denis, a newly endorsed Youth Ambassador and also the vice-chairman of the Association of Young Entrepreneurs Seychelles (AYES). In 2016 he was also the recipient of the best young entrepreneurs’ award by the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI).

As a result of Seychelles being chosen to host the second CAYE summit, Mr Denis was endorsed the vice-chair of the alliance while Brian Randich was endorsed by his Kenyan counterparts as the new chairperson.

According to Mr Denis this has been another important step in his project as a youth ambassador and is looking forward to seeing more young Seychellois benefit from such exposure.

The inaugural summit, which was held under the theme ‘Think Big: Business Beyond Borders’, brought together over 100 young entrepreneurs from the host country, Uganda, Seychelles, Mauritius, Tanzania and Rwanda. It was officially opened by the cabinet secretary for Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs, Sicily K. Kariuki.

In her address she declared that her government believes in “crafting solutions together with youth and not just for youth”. Several other speakers addressed those enthusiastic young entrepreneurs, among whom was Dr Manu Chandaria, chairman of Comcraft Group, who said, “Building up business networks can be quite tasking. It requires commitment of time and resources but the results are worthwhile because work gets done better”.

Seychelles’ contribution did not go unnoticed. In his address Mr Laurence laid emphasis on the importance of political willingness, political stability and the inescapable need of ensuring that youth remains part of the policy making process through consultation, implementation end evaluation. Other countries were also keen to know more about the role the SNYC and Youth Entrepreneurship Board were playing to help young entrepreneurs in Seychelles.

At the end of the summit six key thematic areas were agreed to be presented to Commonwealth governments in their upcoming meeting this year. These are imperatives that will

• Strengthen the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the region;
• Simplify company registration processes for start-up businesses providing preferential access to government procurement for young entrepreneurs;
• Adopt less rigid tax laws for start-ups including incentives and tax breaks;
• Ease processes to access credit by providing guidance to public and private banks;
• Enhance infrastructure to create world class incubation centres;
• Encourage research and development and provide entrepreneurship training involving young entrepreneurs in policy-making and implementation.

Accompanying the article are some photos taken at the conference.

Contributed