Collins Kathuli won the first place in Kenya’s 2023-2024 Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) competition. He will now represent Kenya at the GSEA Global quarter-finals taking place in Oman next month.
Collins is a software development student at KCA University and founder of Kyanda Africa. He will receive prize money of Ksh. 100,000 for his business in addition to mentorship and business coaching from leading entrepreneurs.
This year, over 1,200 student entrepreneurs applied to take part in GSEA from over 40 countries across the world. The Global Finals are scheduled to take place in Singapore in April 2024 with a total prize package of $100,000.
Collins Kathuli, had this to say, “This has been my dream after four years and four attempts, I have finally managed to win. You need to keep trying and never give up – when you do something persistently, at the end of the day it pays off. I’m really looking forward to the Global quarterfinals in Oman!”
Amar Shah, EO Kenya’s Chapter President, said: “We launched GSEA in Kenya in 2017 and it’s amazing to see how much it has grown year by year in terms of the number of applicants. I believe we have an amazing platform and I can only see it growing to another level, where GSEA is recognized as a premier event for student entrepreneurs. The year’s finals have been the best, we had high caliber participants with style, presence and confidence. We look forward to seeing a Kenyan winning the Global Finals!”
This year’s second place and third place winners in Kenya are:
- Charles Oyamo, a student at the University of Nairobi and founder of Rethread Africa, a promising start-up transforming waste into textile, placed second.
- Rediet Kassahun, a medical student at The University of Nairobi, and founder of Quick Cart Africa, an e-commerce delivery platform for fresh produce, won third place.