BLAZE by Safaricom (NSE: SCOM) has today hosted the second Be Your Own Summit of 2019 at Kisii National Polytechnic, Kisii County.
Coming two weeks after the first summit held at Sigalagala National Polytechnic which was attended by more than 3,500 youth in Kakamega County, the Kisii edition saw an approximated 3,000 youth get a chance to learn from BLAZE on building careers and enterprises and packaging their brand through G.R.I.T (Greatness Requires Internal Toughness).
“As has been our mission since we launched BLAZE in 2016, this year we hope to empower over 1.3 million youth by providing access to a platform that allows them to connect, learn and showcase their talents,” said Michael Joseph, Safaricom CEO.
This year, BYOB has expanded its youth engagement programme to 18 summits, compared to last year’s three, which engaged more than 26,000 youth.
Be Your Own Boss (BYOB) features youth mentorship summits and creation camps all focused on empowering Kenyan youth to achieve success by providing valuable information, skills and networking opportunities in a variety of fields including: creative arts, fashion, film and photography, music, agriculture, sales and production and sports.
Like in the previous editions, attendees interacted with local mentors who are industry experts through interest-specific pods where they went through workshops and learnt from the mentor’s experience.
The Kisii Edition featured mentors such as Fundi Frank (fashion designer), Catherine Kamau (Actress), Eric Musyoka (Music Producer), Jibril Blessing (Video Director), Caleb Karuga (farmer and agribusiness consultant), among others.
In addition to the mentors, BLAZE has partnered with Huawei, Google, IBM, USAID-K-YES, Wezesha and other partners, to provide a mix of content, training and employment opportunities to BLAZE subscribers who attend the summits.
BLAZE is a sub-brand of Safaricom and was created to give youth aged 26 years and below products, services and benefits tailored specifically to meet their everyday needs. A first of its kind platform in Kenya, East and Central Africa, BLAZE was founded on what Kenyan youth say is most important to them: freedom, empowerment and the journey to self-discovery, ultimately leading to success.
