Friday 6 December 2013

Meet The Youngest Millionaires In Africa

While a few African millionaires and billionaires may have more money than most of us can ever dream of, here are a handful of young Africans in their 20s and 30s who have built businesses and amassed enviable million-dollar fortunes.
Below is a list of the top 5 richest Africans in their 20s and 30s.
Mark Shuttleworth, South African
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Age: 38
Founder, Knife Capital
When Shuttleworth was 22, he founded Thawte, a digital certificate and internet security company which he sold to VeriSign for $575 million in 1999, when he was 26. Shuttleworth used a fraction of his proceeds to start HBD Capital (now called Knife Capital), a Cape Town-based emerging markets investment fund.
HBD has made a series of successful exits including Fundamo, a mobile financial services company which was acquired by Visa for $110 million in 2011; and csense, which was acquired by GE Intelligent Platforms the same year. Shuttleworth also founded and funds Ubuntu, a computer operating system which he distributes as free open source software. Shuttleworth has a net worth north of $500 million.
Ashish Thakkar, Ugandan
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Age: 29
Co-Founder and CEO, Mara Group
Thakkar, 29 is a co-founder and CEO of Mara Group – a Ugandan conglomerate with tentacles in financial services, hotels, renewable energy, technology and manufacturing. Mara Group operates in four continents and its annual revenues are approximately $100 million. Thakkar provides mentorship and seed funding to young East African entrepreneurs through his Mara Foundation. Also funds an independent charity focused on improving education quality in disadvantaged secondary schools in Uganda. The Mara Group recently signed a $300 million deal with the Tanzanian government to develop a 3.5 million square foot state of the art mini-city.
Ladi Delano, Nigerian
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Age: 30
Founder and CEO, Bakrie Delano Africa
Ladi Delano made his first millions as a liquor entrepreneur while living in China. In 2004, at age 22, he founded Solidarnosc Asia, a Chinese alcoholic beverage company that made Solid XS, a premium brand of vodka. Solid XS went on to achieve over 50% market share in China. He sold the company for $15 million and invested his funds into his next venture-The Delano Reid Group, a real estate investment holding company focused on mainland China. He is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bakrie Delano Africa (BDA) – a $1 billion joint venture with the $15 billion (market cap) Bakrie Group of Indonesia. Bakrie Delano Africa is responsible for identifying investment opportunities in mining, agriculture and oil & gas and executing them.

Justin Stanford, South African
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Age: 28
Founder & CEO, 4Di Group
Stanford is a software entrepreneur and venture capitalist. After dropping out off high school, Stanford set out to launch an internet security company which flopped. Today, Stanford’s ESET (a Slovakian anti-virus software package) Southern Africa operates the ESET brand in the region and sells ESET’s range of internet security products in about 20 sub-Saharan countries. Stanford’s ESET brand records over $10 million in annual turnover and controls 5% of the anti-virus market in Southern Africa. Stanford is also the founding partner of 4Di Capital, a Cape Town-based venture capital fund. He is also a co-founder of the Silicon Cape Initiative, a non-profit movement that aims to turn the Cape into Africa’s own Silicon Valley.

Magatte Wade, Senegalese
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Age:36
Founder, Adina World Beat Beverages & Tiossan
In 2004 Magatte Wade founded Adina World Beat Beverages, a San Francisco beverage company that manufactures coffee, tea and fruit juices using traditional beverage recipes across Africa and organic ingredients sourced from smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia. Within five years of launching, Adina raised over $30 million and the products began being sold by Whole Foods and United Natural Foods. Magatte stepped down from her position as CEO to grow her second company, Tiossan, a manufacturer of luxury skin care products based on indigenous Senegalese recipes.

"I'm Just A Poor Jobless Pensioner, Would You Hire Me?" - Remembering Mandela's SENSE OF HUMOR


photo - "I'm Just A Poor Jobless Pensioner, Would You Hire Me?" - Remembering Mandela's SENSE OF HUMOR
Nelson Mandela was many things to many people, but his sense of humor, his dry wit and his remarkable ability to render someone speechless with a well-placed one-liner, is a separate topic worth to be remembered.
He was not the kind of man to fall over in laughter or to guffaw loudly. He did not make silly gaffes, inappropriate innuendos or stupid jokes. Instead, just like the rest of him, his humor was dignified, statesmanlike and perhaps a little old-fashioned.
Some of Mandela's jokes were well-used and a bit cheesy, but that did not detract from their simplicity and effectiveness.
He had a small arsenal of one-liners he used for different people.
If he met a married couple, he demanded to know from the lady, "When did you propose to your husband?"
Of course, for Mandela, with his early 20th century, patriarchal value system, it was hugely amusing to imagine anything as audacious as a woman asking a man to marry her. And of course, his question was always met with nervous, unnaturally loud laughter that broke the ice.
Either way, Mandela won over foes, disarmed critics and charmed the media with his cutesy, gee-whiz humor.
Besides the jokes, he could also lather complete strangers with devastatingly flattering compliments. He often said to those whose lives are not distinguished by public office or marked by accolades, "I am so honored to meet you."
More often than not, he would poke fun at himself with classic comic timing. He would often start off a speech by thanking everyone for coming to listen to "such an old man."
Later, after he stood down after one term as South African president, he won over a group of staid, white South African businessmen by telling them, "Nowadays, I am just a poor pensioner. I am jobless. Maybe you could hire me?"
Self-mockery was a typically savvy Mandela ploy to ensure that people would relax around him.
The cult of Mandela had become so pronounced that celebrities, world leaders and ordinary people often became tongue-tied and gibbering when they met him.
So, joking about his failings or mistakes was just another way of Mandela saying: "Chill! I'm cool. Relax."
Mandela walked with a ramrod gait, straight-backed and stiff. Over the years,many people meet him for the first time, and without exception, they came away from the encounter amazed at how tall and regal-looking he was.
Only children seemed unintimidated by his height and fame. There is something about Mandela that kids loved.
Little children would run to him without knowing why they were doing it and toddlers rustle around his legs like purring kittens. For them, and even us adults, perhaps he was like a smiling South African Santa Claus?
The feeling was mutual. Mandela mined children for their opinions and views of the world. He seemed to relish their brutal honesty and innocent humor.
One of Mandela's favorite anecdotes -- often told in public -- was of a conversation he had with a 4-year-old girl who asked him how old he was. Mandela replied, "I can't remember, but I was born long, long ago." She then asked him why he went to jail. Mandela replied, "I didn't go there because I liked it. Some people sent me there." She asked how long he had been in jail. Mandela again replied, "I can't remember, but it was a long, long time." Mandela then relays to his audience that after a thoughtful pause the little girl said, "You are a stupid old man, aren't you?"
Mandela's good humor and jovial demeanor were not just a public ploy to charm crowds or disarm nervous guests. He used it to great effect in his political life.
A familiar story in South Africa is how, during multiparty negotiations before the 1994 democratic election, he would often gently tease the leader of a rightwing Afrikaner party, Gen. Constant Viljoen, by saying, "We have to let the white man talk; after all, he is from the supreme race."
Again, a slightly naughty, cheeky grin would subsequently appear, by which time the chilly, racially charged atmosphere would have been warmed up by nervous laughter.
For Mandela, sports were a major weapon against racism
Mandela even amused the British royal family with his casual, overfamiliarity with the Queen, whom he called "Elizabeth" and not "Your Majesty."
It was a deliberate snub against pomp and protocol for the simple, humble Mandela. "Well, she calls me Nelson," was his repost, when one of his grandchildren asked if it was not perhaps in bad form to call the Queen by her first name.
One only wonders the response from the British establishment when Mandela complemented "Elizabeth" on her figure; "Why, Elizabeth, you've lost weight!" he reportedly said to the famously stiff-upper-lipped monarch.
Mandela's humor was centered in his inherent sense of self. He played the fool or jester sometimes, all the while knowing that he was fundamentally deeply content with himself.
While some leaders flounder with self-doubt, or others primp with self-congratulations, Mandela was merely a twinkle away from nudging you in the ribs with a self-knowing smile.
South Africa's first black president and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela has died at age 95, South Africa's president announced on Dec. 5, 2013.
Mandela's funeral will be held on Dec. 15 in South Africa, following 10 days of mourning, President Jacob Zuma announced today. A memorial service will be held at Soccer City in Soweto on Dec. 10, and Mandela's body will lie in state from Dec. 11 through the 13th.

FIFA 2014 World Cup: Final Draw Results. Nigeria Is In Passable Group F

World Cup: Final Draw 
Good Evening, Nigeria and welcome to FIFA 2014 World Cup Draw.
Everything is set at the Costa do Sauipe Resort, Brazil, for the start of the draw! Naij.com shall provide live updates as they happen.
There could easily be two, if not three “groups of death”. There are a lot of very strong teams out there.
The balls will be picked in 5-7 minutes, we shall fill-in the gaps below, LIVE:
17:40 With the eyes of the world waiting for the draw, FIFA respond by giving a gymnastics / dance display celebrating... er, well we've no idea. It's not bad, if a bit X-Factor runner-up. 
17:43 The pre-draw disposition: Pot 1 is the seeded teams, with hosts Brazil automatically in group A.
Pot 2 is Africa and South America - plus one randomly-drawn European team, which could be England.
Pot 3 is Australasia and North/Central America, while Pot 4 is Europe. 
17:45 Pele is now on stage - talking about his dad crying in 1950 after Brazil lost the World Cup final at the Maracana.
17:49 The official presentation now moves to video clips of all the towns that will host matches in the tournament - lots of montages of colourful houses, funky beaches and people dancing with big smiles on their faces. Honestly, we want the draw to get started as much as you do :)
17:52 The men making the draws are now being introduced - and first up is Sir Geoff Hurst. Cafu, Fabio Cannavaro, Zinedine Zidane, Mario Kempes, Fernando Hierro, Lothar Matthaeus and Alcides Ghiggia are the other men who'll be involved... 
17:55 IT'S ON:
Group A
- Brazil
- Croatia
- Mexico
- Cameroon
Group B ('Group of Death')
- Spain
- Netherlands
- Chile 
- Australia
Group C
- Columbia
- Greece
- Ivory Coast
- Japan
Group D ('Group of Death')
- Uruguay
- Costa Rica
- England
- Italy
Group E ('Group of Life')
- Switzerland
- Ecuador
- France
- Honduras
Group F
- Argentina
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Iran
- NIGERIA 
Group G
- Germany
- Portugal
- Ghana
- United States of America
Group H ('Group of Life')
- Belgium
- Algeria
- Russia
- South Korea

18:21 The draw is over. More reactions, comments and analysis will follow soon. Thanks for joining us!
UP SUPER EAGLES!! UP NIGERIA!