CEO Today - March 2023

THE CEO INTERVIEW What inspired your motivation to venture into the World of entrepreneurship? The precarious events surrounding my upbringing naturally configured an entrepreneurial expedition in me. At a tender age, I had tried all sorts of incomegenerating endeavours. Although my mother had no formal education herself, she always encouraged us to study hard and also help at the small store she worked at. Raised as an underprivileged child, I had this passion within me to reverse the status quo for the better. This required a high level of commitment, discipline, focus, patience and dreaming big to make it out of the crowd. In January 2003, I enrolled in a short course and learned some entrepreneurial principles through the Youth IT and Entrepreneurship Development program at Duhaga Tele Center just a couple of months before starting university. After that, I read the Rich Dad Poor Dad book by Robert Kiyosaki and it really sparked off the “go-start gear”. I began to plan very clearly what I wanted for my career after campus. In my mind, it was clear that a job would not help me to achieve my ambition. The drive was seemingly too big, as I was visioning beyond Uganda. I just needed to start anyhow, but there were two major barriers. I had no startup capital and no work experience. I needed to find a job and between 2007 and 2010 I worked for other people. On 28 February 2008, however, I registered GEO-MIK. Along the journey, I realised that to shape and sustain the real world of entrepreneurship, at a personal level, it was essential to make bold tradeoffs and confront competitive career choices - continue my studies and give all of my time to the pursuit of my dream. Ultimately, I relinquished the latter and also called off early opportunities for postgraduate study multiple times. However, when I reflect on my journey today, I am “At a tender age, I had tried all sorts of incomegenerating endeavours. Although my mother had no formal education herself, she always encouraged us to study hard and also help at the small store she worked at.”

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