#18 - March 2010 - First Social Entrepreneurship Competition in Cameroon

If I hadn’t found her yet, this week I found the Manager in me. When I look back one week from now, and I imagine all I had to do in order for the Elevator Pitch Contest yesterday to be a success, I wonder, how in the world did I pull that off!!!!? First and foremost, I thank the Lord, and I won’t cease to thank Him cause I know without some divine energy and drive, I could not have made it through yesterday night. My three-days fast certainly had something to do with it too.   I did my best and God did the rest!

But I tell you, I reached a point last week when I was just overwhelmed to the neck – my team mates were all, somehow, not available. I had a whole chunk of work on my head, and tasks to do. I just kept working, and working and working. Jumping from one task to the other – Drafting invitation letters, sending email alerts, calling participants, hosting 2 orientation sessions, looking for funds, dropping invitations, booking the room…. Yes, I have a team, from Logistics Director to VP to PRO to Marketing, but somehow out of the 20+ tasks we outlined during our meeting, they could do just 5 out of 20 of them. I asked them, “in your opinion, who do you think would do the rest of the 80 percent of the work?” But everyone had an excuse for not being able to do more than they chose to do. What could I do?  

Let me give you an example so you can understand some of the challenges I face managing this Harambe-Cameroon. Two weeks ago, during the meeting we drafted the Tasks-to-do for the week. I asked who would do what? Everyone looks at each other, or in the air. lol!  I tell you, this is real management training. Real hand-on experience. I’m learning though… back to the story… so one of them says he/she would do the task - which was to draft the invitation letters by Sunday, cause we had to drop them on Monday. I was like, “great, thank you. I trust u’ll do great.” Sunday evening at midnight, the person emails me the invites. I saw the email on Monday morning. All I thought I’d do was, get the letters, print them out and give it to 2 others to drop it, while I do other stuff.  So I open the doc attached to the email which said something like “I didn’t have much time, this is what I did, please finish it.”  The letter was half complete, mistakes all over, dates are all wrong, the name of the event is not right, the header and footnote are something else… I tell you, no effort, no rigor, plain negligence… I was just shaking my head in disbelief. Like, Are you serious???

Personally, I’d rather not submit anything than a half-ass job. Really, ‘cause it’s frustrating to be counting on someone and see that the work is not done properly (which here is an understatement). I had to spend my entire Monday morning, drafting more than 50 letters to different organisations, media, and universities around town. If I knew the person could not do it, I would have managed my time during the weekend to have the letters ready by Sunday, u know? How can you work with people so unreliable? Unreliability is my biggesssst problem with my team here.  You cannot delegate a task to someone and be at peace that it will be done right. Either the deadline is not respected, or there is no rigor at all in the work submitted, or they don’t even deliver anything and don’t say anything about it. Now, if each time I assign something I have to do a backup plan, which usually ends up being of better quality than what my teammate has submitted, I wonder why I should even spend time assigning the task.

Now they are not always doing things wrongly, noh, sometimes they are productive, they help here and there, with administrative and logistic stuff. They are certainly interested in the endeavour, but their commitment is still questionable. Yet, I need a team, even if it’s to just do the 5% of the work. Lol. I need the team because they will keep Harambe-Cameroon alive when I leave. My worst nightmare is that once I leave Cameroon the endeavour dies down. (I’m thinking of strategies to keep it sustainable, e.g. institutionalizing it within different schools and government agencies),  but the team is also a key element. That’s why I’m persistent with my team. I’m trying to engage them to be not only executants, but also decision makers. 

Back to the competition…. As I said before, it was wonderful! Simple, straight to the point, and entertaining. This time around, unlike at our inauguration, we didn’t have hostesses, catering, banderols, flyers, etc, but it was even much more appreciated. The event was structured in 2 main parts – The presentation of Harambe Cameroon (origins, goals, missions, etc) and the Competition.

For the competition, we ended up with 18 contestants (30 were selected, 20 confirmed they’ll compete, and 18 showed up that day (although we provided transportation)). That number was just perfect. It was big enough to get a diversity of ideas, and small enough to keep people captivated. (when I think  I had proposed to start the EPC with 100 contestants! Lol. Then 50! Clearly, there was a huge gap between theory and practice.) 20 candidates is just perfect! The 18 candidates that showed up came from 7 universities in Yaounde. Ready to compete. We told them during the orientation, they will be called randomly to do their pitch, so they had to come prepared to pitch! I can imagine the anxiety some of them must have had…. Especially speaking in public, and trying to sell a solution you have to a problem you have identified. So at the beginning of the event I asked the audience to be a “good audience” and be appreciative of the efforts of the candidates.

The Concept of the competition:

• In 90 seconds articulate the solution to a problem you have identified.
• Harambe-Cameroon focuses on Social Entrepreneurship, as such your project idea has to create revenue and have a social impact.
• To help future entrepreneurs to sell their ideas effectively, cogently, with eloquence. 

The Jury was made up of 4 people: 

• A representative of the National Employment Fund
• Nfinyo Mabu, Jurist/Entrepreneur. Co-founder of the inner city and intercity transportation company LeBus/LeCar, and VP of both companies. Current Genera Manager of a Civil Engineering company. And consultant of Business Development and Facilitation of Foreign Investments.
• Michael Ananga – US trained corporate attorney (New York state Bar certified). From University of Yaounde II, he went to Harvard Law School, 2004 Alumn. Interned at Word Bank for a yer, and presently at CSPH, in the Pretroleum sector in Cameroon.
• And Myself, as President of Harambe-Cameroon, and promoter of the Elevator Pitch Contest in Cameroon.

The Judging Criteria were modelled after the MIT100K Elevator Pitch Competition:

Presentation (5pts)

Body Language/Charisma

Clarity

Articulation

Passion/Enthusiasm

Opportunity (5pts)

Problem identification

Pertinence 

Target customer identification

Solution (5pts)

Value proposition

Strategy

(Financial) viability/profitability

The  Big  Question  -  Do  you  want  another  meeting?  (Are  you  interested  and  convinced  by  the presentation?)(5pts)

After each 90seconds presentation. The candidate faced the 4 jury, and each gave their feedback on their performance. The total average of the jury’s score made the score of the candidate. There was a score keeper and a time keeper.

The ideas ranged from finding solutions to waste management problems, to magazines to help teenagers, and infrastructures for disabled people…. The ideas were varied, and interesting. Some dwelled too long on identifying the problem, and didn’t have enough time to propose a solution. Others proposed a solution but didn’t propose any strategies. Some just spoke, and didn’t state how they, individually, would provide the solution to the problem they identified. They had great feedback. 

At the end of the day, the audience appreciated this new concept of competing in Cameroon. In 90 seconds you say the essential, and you try to convince your audience. Many appreciated the opportunity it gave students to express themselves in public. They also admired the dynamism in the youth and the ideas that came out of them.

The 4 winners had the following projects:

1. The First – FUN RUBBISH is the title of his project. I won’t give the details of his project here. But the title hints it’s about having Fun with Rubbish, while creating a business.
2. The Second – A project on valorising tomatoes and increasing the industrialization of those tomatoes.
3. The Third - There was a tie for the third place. So what ended up happening was, we exposed the problem to the audience. We asked them to help us select best of the two with a show of hands. The one they selected became the third, and the other was automatically 4^th. The third explained pragmatically how to create a business of fried plantains and eggs in the college setting, as a fastfood, to employ students and create revenue.
4. And the fourth spoke of the vulgarization of solar panels, in order to remedy the electricity shortage of the National Electricity company.

They received their Award Certificates, with the following prizes, sponsored by the US embassy:  

1^st Prize =150.000FCFA($300), 2^nd Prize = 100.000(200$), 3^rd =75000 (150), 4^th = 50000($100)

What I personally feel about yesterday is that yesterday people saw what I have been telling them about. They witness the impact Harambe could have on Cameroon’s youth, they witnessed how young Cameroonians can express themselves when given the chance to, and they discovered the unleashed potential in the youth of our nation. I believe we will inspire and engage this generation to become Problem Solvers. As our slogan goes, we will be “Transforming our problems into opportunities.”

The lowlight is that there were not as many media as we hoped there’d be. We invited them. We invited all of them, officially with a letter we dropped at their HQs, and by email, and by phone. But 2 out of 20 showed up. Apparently how things happen here with the media, you have to guarantee them they will get a per diem whenever they come mediatise your event. Whether it’s the first such competition in the nation, they could care less. Who are you? And will you give them something at the end of your event? If you don’t, don’t expect your event to feature in the news (written or televised). It’s certainly sad, ‘cause for organizations like ours that are already struggling with funding, and would like to have the media help us secure more sponsors, it’s hard to satisfy their perdiem expectations. One of the main media channels actually called me, and told me in order for them to broadcast an event in the evening, we have to pay 250.00FCFA ($500)! Loll... I magine! It’s even funny thinking about it again. Hehehehe... that’s even more than the cost of renting the room at Hotel Mt Febe! Lool! I was just like “ahbeg, i don’t have that kinda money for one media!” We had two lowkey media that showed up tthough, and afterwards expected a little thing/ transport money (after everyone had drained me of my last penny), I honestly told them I don’t have a dime left, and will meet up with them next week to compensate their transportation fees.

I tell you, this society deserves a movie of itself, cause it’s more than fiction!

As you might know, the great thing about the media is that it multiplies the effect to a larger audience. Whatever feeling the 200 people in the room must have felt, a thousand more people would have seen and felt similar. With the media, the impact would have been bigger and wider. That’s why it’s rather unfortunate we weren’t able to have the media present to showcase what went on. At the end people wanted more, they were impressed, they were inspired!

The Two organisations/institutions i’ll forever thank for making this First Elevator Pitch Contest in Cameroon happen are Mt Febe Hotel  and The US Embassy in Cameroon.  Mt Febe Hotel is a Cameroonian 4 star Hotel, with a resort –like feel, and a gorgeous view of the city.  In 2008, when I went to visit the General Manager of the hotel in his office to tell him about my idea of a Harambe-Cameroon, he told me, “the doors of Mt Febe are open to Harambe-Cameroon.” Two years later, his promise was still valid, and he restated it at our inauguration on November 12^th, 2009.  So, we seized the opportunity to host the competition there. They gave us a 75% discount!!!! That’s practically giving us the room for Free.

The room was splendid. It came with a stage, a 250 seats, a screen for the projector, 2 wireless mics, and the sound system incorporated. All that included in the 25% fees we had to pay. Can u imagine!?  I was so thankful because I know how much I would have spent if that didn’t come with the room. For the Inauguration, although we had the room for free, we had to rent the projector, the microphones, the screen, the chairs, invest in the decoration, plus the transportation of all those people transporting the equipments... those are expenses that added up to make most of the budget. So yesterday, I was happy with the deal we had with Mt Febe. They fulfilled their corporate social responsibility! It might not have been deliberate, but they did give back to society, and for that, we have to applaud them and solicit them more...

So when you come to Cameroon, and if you are in Cameroon, don’t go elsewhere but Mt Febe Hotel. It’s the place to be. It’s gorgeous, it’s peaceful, it lovely! I repeat, Mt Febe Hotel is the place to be whenever you are in Cameroon, and whenever you want to host an event, or have your wedding, or a romantic night out. If you are YOUNG especially, go to MtFebe ‘cause they have graciously supported Cameroon’s youth. If you are an ENTREPRENEUR, go to MtFebe, ‘cause they have encouraged entrepreneurship in Cameroon. If you are Cameroonian, go to MtFebe, so you may consume Cameroonian. If you are non-Cameroonian, go to MtFebe Hotel, for they have supported an international organization that seeks to create the most powerful network of Africans in every country (yours included) in the world. And when you go, say Olivia Mukam, or Harambe-Cameroon referred you! J

The second institution i’ll always thank for this competition is the US Embassy in Cameroon.  I have to say they are the ONLY ones, thus far, who honored their promise to support us financially. They said they will and they did. Their word means something and I respect that. It’s a value I used to take for granted while in the US, but which I’ve come to admire of Americans, after realizing how hard it is for most of my brothers and sisters here to mean what they say. The US embassy sponsored the prizes of the winners, which for me was the most important piece of our budget. For the rest, i.e. Logistics and administrative costs, I managed to pull things together with individual family members chipping in to help out. My wonderful Tata Aline wired some money from Douala, Tonton Simplice too. Then Mom, helped me pay for 80% of the room, and dad helped round up the total budget. That’s how we managed to make things happen. I think it’s really regrettable that we have all these people here complaining about the youth, or even the development of our country, but when given the chance to have a real impact on a generation of doers, they shy away. What I have seen and experienced thus far, hmmmm.... I tell you, it has definitely made me stronger! So I can’t complain, because it was a learning experience, even if frustrating at times...

So imagine a company tells you, “We love your project, we like it and we will support you, send us all the documents we’ll look over it and give you a response.” You do just that. Email them the stuff. One month goes by, you don’t hear back from them. You send an email, they’re like “yeah, don’t worry we’re down with you!” you send them the paper copy of all the docs you emailed them. No response. You go meet them, they tell you, “you know for the event you have coming up, we will certainly help you out, the budget is not that big ($1,600), we will do something!”hmmm.... 2 weeks before the event, you email to follow up... no response. You call the cellphones, no pickup. You insist, once, twice, thrice (on different days of the week).... then you get the point... they were just TALKING! Can you imagine 2 companies did that to me? In both cases, they first talked talked, reassured me they will support, then a week or two before the event, they went MIA. Leaving me pondering, and scrambling around with Plan Bs...Hmmm... I tell you, I was so disillusioned, to say the least. And I might have been very naive to hang on to their promises of support! It’s too bad though. It’s really too bad ‘cause for me, one of the most precious things you possess and that you can easily lose is your WORD; i.e. Meaning what you say, and saying what you mean. If your Yes is not Yes, or your I will is not I will, then don’t say it. DON’T SAY IT. Stay Quiet! (At least when dealing with me.) There are so many people who promised to help me somehow with yesterday’s competition, whether it’s with dropping invitations, helping with the transportation, printing out a doc or two, in short, logistic/administrative stuff. But somehow someway they failed to deliver their promise. What I have to say is this, Don’t say you will do something if you can’t. Don’t try to Please me, cuz you will displease me instead. Don’t try to do something you cannot do, and don’t try to be someone you cannot be. I repeat again, as I had in a previous post, I admire Real talk! If you can do it, wonderful! If you cannot, it’s not a big deal, I’ll do it.   If your word does not mean a thing anymore, how will you be taken seriously? how can you do things? what can you even do, except for joggling around and getting lost in your own labyrinth of dishonesty? Really, real talk here, there are few things that bug me, but this (as you can sense in my tone) is one of the things that ticks my last nerve – people who talk and don’t act! There are plenty plenty of them here in Kmer... and so I’m learning by experience, and I am becoming vaccinated to cheap talk!

Now, there’s another set of people, who, when they don’t see how they can help advance your endeavor, they push you to question your initiative. Some of them ask me, why are you doing this? Why are you struggling so hard looking for money for something you will not even profit from? Why don’t you find the funds then do the program you want? First off, let me say, if you cannot do it, too bad. I know I can do it, so I will not settle until I see it come to fruition. Persistence and Results are my 2 other names.  And as for finding the funds before doing stuff, I say it’s kinda like the “hen-and-egg” problem. What comes first? The Hen or the egg? Same with sponsorships... What comes first, sponsors? Or the project (especially social ones)? The thing is, sponsors want to see what you have done. They want to know things will happen, and that what you’re doing will work. So, often times in order to attract sponsors you have to SHOW them something you have done, or that you can do. But in order to do it, you need sponsors. So if in that case you don’t have sponsors, you are left with the option of investing yourself in your project. I think it’s even very important you put in your money in your project, because first it’s your thing, secondly, when people see your commitment towards the project, and the investment you have made in it, it gives them more motivation to invest too.

I can’t evaluate the amount or personal funds I’ve put in this initiative. It easily goes over $4000, which might not sound much to a business man. But for a young lady fresh out of college, with no stable job, it’s huuuugeee!!!! I don’t feel the burden though; I don’t even think it’s a burden, I think it’s a necessary investment for a good cause, which many people are starting to see it’s a valuable cause to invest in (Engaging a generation of problem-solvers).  And as I had said in a previous post, I personally don’t really need much cash in my pockets. The Lord has blessed me with good health, a great house to live in, food on the table every breakfast-lunch-and-dinner (without me having to do anything), electricity every month at home, water that flows directly into the taps in the house (i.e. when the national water company is happy enough to not cut the water for 3 days in a row).  In short, I don’t need plenty of cash – or shall i say, my aim is not to make money. Really. Of course I will  have to generate a stable revenue to be independent (that’s alright though, I have some fruitful business opps I’m working on now). My main aim is to empower people to find the best in them, the leader, the entrepreneur, the doer. Whether it’s with Harambe or in my life, I enjoy helping people realize what they can do!

I think I’ve been blessed a lot with Drive, with energy, with a profound and unshakable believe that I can do whatever I put my mind to, and with a profound understanding that life is what we make of it, that I want to make others realize that too. I know I’m not the only one amongst my friends, family, acquaintances who can pursue and believe in her dreams, that’s why I want others to realize that they can dream big too, and most importantly, if they work towards it, their dream can come true! It's possible! You can do it! You can do it! You can do it!

That said, the pictures and videos  of the Elevator Pitch Contest will be coming soon…. In the mean time, receive my warmest hugs.

Peace and Love.