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Austin Okere (CWG Boss), flanked by co-authors Steve Blank (left) and Bob Dorf (right)
at Columbia Business School, New York
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The group chief
executive officer, Computer Warehouse Group (CWG), Mr. Austin Okere has joined crop
of leading world entrepreneurs as he became an instructor at the Steve Blank “Lean Launch Pad” Class, Columbia
Business School (CBS).
By combining
content from the world’s leading experts in customer development with local
mentors and leaders in an intensive flipped-classroom style course, the
movement was able to create a unique, effective experience for teams of
entrepreneurs that are serious about growing a customer-driven startup.
The programme is
already being offered in 15 cities around the world, with another 25 programmes
launching in February with the goal to expand the programme to more than 100
cities in 2013.
Seasoned entrepreneurs such as Steve Blank are teaching NEXT in Silicon Valley,
Andy Sack (TechStars Seattle founder) in Seattle, Alex Farcet (founder of
Startupbootcamp) in multiple European cities, Eric Koester (founder of Zaarly)
in Washington, DC with countless others joining.
The Eugene Lang Entrepreneurial Center at CBS, where Okere has been a
guest lecturer since 2009, conveyed in their invitation their belief that his
experience and contribution to entrepreneurial ship in emerging markets will
provide unparalleled contribution to the class of aspiring entrepreneurs.
The Computer Warehouse Group, whose case study is a regular feature at
Columbia Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston,
as well as many other institutions in Africa, including the prestigious Lagos
Business School, chronicles the trials, challenges and triumph of
entrepreneurship in the challenging environment that characterizes Sub Saharan
Africa.
The Lean Launch Pad course provides real world, hands-on learning on
what it is like to actually
start a high-tech company. It is a practical class where the goal is to
create an entrepreneurial experience with all of the pressures and demands of
the real world in an early stage start up.
The syllabus for the course is drawn majorly from the bestselling book,
The Startup Owner’s Manual, co-authored by serial entrepreneurs Steve Blank and
Bob Dorf, and the revolutionary new book, Business Model Generation co-authored
by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.
These two books provide insights into powerful, simple, tested tools for
understanding, designing, reworking, and implementing business models, through
a business model canvas, that defines unique value propositions for specific
customer segments, and the relationships and channels to deliver these to the
customer to maximize revenue. It also helps the entrepreneur identify key
resources, partners and key activities to be performed and at what cost.
The course provides a comprehensive step-by-step guide to getting
startups right. It walks entrepreneurs through the customer development process
that gets them out of the building to develop wining products that customers
will buy.
There is an increasing global focus and emphasis on entrepreneurship as the most viable vehicle for job creation. According
to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2011 report, there is an upsurge
in entrepreneurship around the world, with a total number of about 400 million
spread across 54 countries. The GEM in its 2006 report revealed that there was
a systematic relationship between a country’s level of economic development and
its level of entrepreneurial activity. It noted that countries with similar per
capita GDP tend to exhibit similar levels of entrepreneurial activity.
At low levels of per capita GDP, industrial structure is characterized
by the prevalence of many very small enterprises. As per capita income increases,
industrialization and economies of scale allow larger and established firms to
satisfy the increasing demand of growing markets and to increase their relative
role in the economy.
On his involvement in the Block Week Course at Columbia Business School Okere
said “I believe that it is better to have
a thousand millionaires than a ten billionaires. It is better still to have a
million people with access to a hundred thousand dollars, if they can be taught
how to nurture and grow it through entrepreneurial endeavor; and I intend to do
something about it, so when I was invited, I did not hesitate in accepting,
with a view to bringing the concept to Africa”.
Okere whose entrepreneurial advocacy has taken him on similar teaching
expeditions across Africa; through Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania also remarked “I like to put the story of the Computer
Warehouse Group out there because such success stories contribute immensely to
the attraction of capital to the region, which combined with the
entrepreneurial acumen and the youthful population unleashes waves of economic
boom, which in turn lifts the pile at bottom of the pyramid into the more
desirable networked economy of the emerging global village. Besides, it
provides the perfect opportunity to be a brand ambassador for Africa”.
Okere, one of
Nigeria’s foremost entrepreneurs has made quite a name for himself over the
past 20 years, growing the Computer Warehouse Group into a $130 million revenue
company, with 650 staff spread across Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon. In
2012 he was named ICT Man of the Decade by ICT Watch Africa Digital Network,
and CWG was named Conglomerate of the Year. The organizers cited CWG’s immense
contributions toward the growth and development of Information and
Communications Technology (ICT), youth empowerment through ICT education, and
nation building.
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