Celebrating Global Entrepreneurship week 2017, at Limkokwing University Regent, the Freetown Pitch night competition has been won by Leonard Francis of Vibbi.
In his presentation, Francis said his business it to put together data and processes to create employment for young men and women.
Mr Francis said in Sierra Leone unemployment is high and most of those looking out for jobs are unskilled. Thus he said,’Vibbi’will be able to work with these youths and potential employers to get them employed as well as trained.
When asked how he wants to achieve such a feat, Leonard Francis said “look around and see for yourself, many institution really want to employ, but how can they employ someone without the required skills. When they know that the skills they are looking for is available then they will be ready to give jobs to them.”
With his presentation he was able to win the hearts and minds of the five judges and was chosen as the best with a trip to Turkey where he will meet with other winners and will have the opportunity to enhance his career and realize his dream by making’Vibbi’ company a house hold name in Sierra Leone.
On the final day of the competition, four young entrepreneurs made it to the final – Vibbi owned by Leonard Francis, Little Lamb Events and Bridals owned by Andrea Koroma who came second; Clarkson Cakes owned by 18 year old Regina Clarkson (third) and AdbulsalamKamara of Clean Soap in fourth place.
Andrea said Little Brides has been around for over three years and her gross earnings for this year is estimated to reach $25,000.
She said her dream is to open branches all over the country and to start her own bakery because when she has a wedding or birthday party to plan, she has to do the cake. Andrea said she has been designing different types of cakes, which has helped her win more contracts.
18-year-old Regina Clarkson said her dream is to open up a $200,000 bakery by 2019 so that she can take over the market by producing quality cakes that will replace most of the cakes now in the streets.
“I believe in quality and hygiene and I would want to make sure that Clarkson Cakes replace and provide quality for people in Sierra Leone. I would want to make sure that my products can be bought all over the country and by 2019 would want to cross into the Mano River Countries with my products.”
She said most of the ingredients are produced locally and that is an added advantage for her to develop at a faster rate.”Only the vanilla extracts are imported.”
She said currently she has vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and chocomint cakes and their prices range from Le5,000 to Le50,000, and she has different points of sale in the city.
Clean Soap by Abdulsalam Kamara said his main priority is to make the ‘black soap’ friendlier by making sure it is well packaged and have a good fragrance smell that will encourage people to buy more of it.
“This is a soap that has medicinal value and many people would want to use it, but because it is not produced properly, people shy away from it. For us when we would have processed it well and packaged it, we would have added more value to it.”
He said they would also be using waste from fruits to manufacture different soap and would make sure that they do enough publicity to get more sales.
According to the judges, all four of them had brilliant dreams that will make them become successful in the future. Except for Regina, the other three are graduates and they have more experience than Regina who is now entering university.
Limkokwing University and Global Entrepreneurship Sierra Leone thanked the sponsors especially Sierra Leone Brewery for the support and hope they will continue their sponsorship into the future.
Monday November 20, 2017.
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