Julho 17, 2020

Pitch & Zouk – Africa in my agenda and in my mind

Hi my dear readers of my daily posts and followers of my blog. Another day is just starting (always seen from my home office in Sao Paulo, Brazil) and I need to mention something at first, which I unfortunately forgot to tell You yesterday. But anyhow all subjects mentioned in this post today will be about Africa and my so far gained experiences and initiated activities on this incredibly huge, beautiful and diverse continent.

Are You aware, that the African continent comprises 30 million square kilometers of land, enough to fit in it the USA, China, India, Japan, Mexico and many European nations combined? Did You already know, that there are 54 independent countries with currently 1.2 billion people living there? According to UN estimates, the population of Africa may reach 2.5 billion by 2050 (about 26% of the world’s total population) and nearly 4.5 billion by 2100 (about 40% of the world’s total population then).

Sorry, but the reason for many people`s ignorance of this is, that because the familiar Mercator map projection tends to distort our geographical view of the world in a crucial way — one that often leads to misconceptions about the relative sizes of both countries and continents, like especially in the case of Africa.

In my yesterday`s post I mentioned to You, that I have only listened to French radio stations during my two weeks stay in Paris in march. But I forgot to mention to You, that of all the French radio stations which I experienced during my two weeks there, RBM FM 103.4 “La radio des Hits” – a radio station in the French overseas territories, which plays endlessly Reggae, Zouk and other “tropical” music types – became the one that I liked and listened to the most.

If You want to try it, here`s the link to RBM radio station:

https://www.radio.de/s/rbrfm

By the way, I find it really fancy, that we all can listen so easily and freely nowadays to any worldwide digital radio station on the multiple online streaming channels in the internet. Just download the apps for these on Your mobile internet devices.

My favorite latin music radio station is Radio Panamericana 101.1 FM in Lima, Peru:

https://www.radio.de/s/panamericana

Yesterday I had the honor to participate as representant of our recently opened new company Vulkan Africa in the First EU-African
Online Business Lab for SMEs upon the following invitation of the European
Entrepreneurs CEA-PME (http://www.cea-pme.com/):

“After the first EU-African SME Summit in Brussels in
2019, when 10 African and European SME support organisations signed – under the
auspices of the European Commission – the EU-African SME Alliance, and where
the basic values and strategic visions for a better economic cooperation
between Europe and Africa have been shared, it is now time to explore more in depth the business opportunities for small
and medium-sized enterprises in the two neighbouring continents. Due to the
COVID-19 crisis, European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME, PACCI, BVMW, FIPME and CONFAPI
have decided to organise the First
Online EU-African Business Lab for SMEs 2020, which intends to highlight the chances for entrepreneurs
and to share the best roads towards a
successful economic cooperation of smart and open-minded companies in Africa and Europe for a common
future.

To encourage the potential investments in Africa, we have initiated an open call for business
proposals, for local businesses fostering job creation and market growth in
Africa. The top three businesses selected under the call will get a special opportunity
for free consultancy and business development expertise to start their business
on African ground.”

The same as my colleagues from the other nine European and African SMEs and Start Ups which had also qualified for this final round, I presented during my 7 minutes pitch our market entry and business development project for the African sub-Saharan region countries and markets to the international online audience.

It was amazing for me, to find myself during my pitch presentation amongst entrepreneurs from Poland, Italy, DR Congo, Belgium, Benin, France, Senegal, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Uganda and Spain presenting their own wonderful business ideas for the African markets and people.

Once again I could “show our flag”, made lots of very nice and interesting friends and contacts and gained several opportunities for discussion of future cooperation and joint projects, with regards to our concrete market entry and business development plans for the African continent.

Please regret, that I keep my today`s post a little shorter than normal, but because of my participation in the above mentioned event during great part of yesterday, I need to catch up with lots of other subjects which I need to attend properly today still, before the weekend starts.

Once more I had great fun, to share my experiences with You and I am looking forward now to Your comments upon what I mentioned above. I am really curious to hear from You, whether You like my two radio station recommendations.

See You back here again tomorrow. Have a great and successful friday.