Entrepreneurship in an Emerging Economy: The CWG Illustration
Apr 30, 2013 
Categories: Event
Tags: Lecture, Lecture_Upcoming
Austin Okere
Founder & CEO, Computer Warehouse Group
Full Bio>>
Join us on April 30th to learn about the opportunities and challenges of crafting a coherent long-term strategy in a fast-changing emerging market economy.
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 entrepreneurs spread over 54 countries. The GEM in its 2006 report revealed that there is 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 more established firms to satisfy the increasing demand of growing markets and to increase their relative role in the economy.
Okere believes that “It is better to have a thousand millionaires than 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”. He continues “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”.
In 20 years Austin has grown the Computer Warehouse Group from a company which he founded with a seed capital of about $35,000 into a $130 million revenue company, with 650 staff spread across Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 5:30pm
100 Main St, Cambridge Sloan School of Management, E62-262
Co-hosted by MIT Sloan Africa Business Club
Free and open to the public
