Digital entrepreneurs visit Kenya

i/o ventures is an early stage start-up program that focuses heavily on mentorship. Their network of entrepreneurs have started multi-billion dollar internet companies including PayPal, YouTube, MySpace, Hi5 and Yelp, many of which have over 100 million users visiting their websites monthly.

The mentors have visited a number of countries including Singapore, Brazil, Russia, and mostly recently Tanzania. During their visits the mentors travel and participate in a variety of events which usually include speaking at universities, meeting with upcoming entrepreneurs, top business leaders and a meeting or dinner with top government officials including the president or prime minister. The end goal is to spread ICT entrepreneurship, build a bridge into Silicon Valley and encourage the growth of the local "tech ecosystem".

Incubating start-up entrepreneurs

i/o ventures are making their first trip to Kenya from 13-14 December. During their Kenya trip they would like to focus on mentorship based on their extensive experience in incubating start-up entrepreneurs. Their most recent graduating class included six companies in the internet space, they were exposed to 120 venture capitalists and angel investors and all got funded. Half are already profitable, one has been acquired.

Profiles

• Russel Simmons: early employee/lead technical architect at paypal, former CTO and co-founder of Yelp.com
  
• Jawed Karim: cofounder of Youtube, early employee at Paypal and angel investor
  
• Paul Bragel: partner at i/o ventures, co-founder of Leforum (online forums), co-founder/CEO of Meetro (location based social networking) and former CEO of Paragon Five (game development
  
• Mbwana Alliy: associate at i/o ventures, co-founder of Yellow Masai, Board Member at Envaya

Members of the media interested in booking interviews with special guests should contact Kaburo Kobia at ek.og.tci@aibokk or call 0729466260.