The 2nd of April, The BIG day

Home in Copenhagen, the Easter break is at its highest. However, to us in Kampala this is the big day. People showed up in their finest clothing, ready to seize the final day of group work between the MUBS and the CBS students and to learn about the results of the projects that had cost us all hard work and sweat, but most importantly, that gave us joy and learning. MUBS provided lunch: Matoke, rice, chapatti, spinach, groundnut source, some meat, and a nice cold beverage against the heat. 

Thursday in the night, we had a good-bye dinner. Despite the fact that many of the MUBS students normally had classes in the night, most of them managed to show up for this last dinner, which completed the evening. An excellent ending to some extraordinary weeks.   

Team and Project Introduction - Microfinance

Our group consists of four students: Azizi (Uganda), Vincent (Uganda), Marie (Denmark) and Solveig (Germany). Our overall topic is “Private Sector Development and the Influence of Microfinance”. The private sector is seen as the engine of growth of the Ugandan economy and a central pillar for increasing income, creating employment and, consequently, reducing poverty on a sustainable basis. Microfinance is the provision of financial services to small enterprises. It is seen as a possibility to reduce poverty and it can be found widely in Uganda. The most common financial instrument is microcredit or micro lending.

However, only a few microenterprises experience sustained growth, while the majority grows only a little or maintains their operations at a constant level. The success of a microfinance program in terms of outreach, financial sustainability and/or socio-economic impact, depends on an interaction between the characteristics of the program itself, both its design and the way it is managed and the context in which the program is implemented. We are specifically interested in how far, training provided by the Microfinance Institution (MFI), has a positive impact on the survival of microenterprises. We have been conducting in-depth interviews at the Nakawa Market in the centre of Kampala. We have been talking to various entrepreneurs as well as to MFIs, in order to approach our research question: “To what extent are training programs provided by microfinance institutions perceived as beneficial to their clients?”

March 21th - Trip to Jinja

On Saturday 21^st all the CBS students and a big part of the MUBS group joined for a trip to Jinja. During the two hours drive we could see the Mabira forest, tea fields, sugarcane plantations and different roadside business set ups. In Jinja, we visited Kakira sugar factory where we heard a presentation about the company and made a tour in the facilities that gave us insights of how sugar is processed. Afterwards, we visited the source of the river Nile where we made a boat ride and enjoyed the peaceful and relaxing atmosphere at the Nile.

March 20th - First Research Interview of the Dream Team

On this Friday, the dream team, analyzing Corporate Entrepreneurship in Uganda, had its first research interview with David Mukholi, a managing editor at The Vision Group, Uganda’s biggest Media house. The interview definitely met our expectations. It was fun filled and David provided all the information we needed to cover our questions. With Frank Kabushenga organizing the meeting, we were warmly welcomed and felt at home. David broke it down by answering questions on New Vision’s background and the different innovations that have taken place in the company. David gave us a tour within the different departments to have a practical feel of how the company operates.

In the evening, many CBS as well as MUBS students gathered in order to enjoy Kampala’s nightlife together. The MUBS students suggested Legends, a bar with an ample open-air area and local music. Meeting up in a more casual atmosphere, outside university gave us the chance to get to know each other better and to explore local culture.

Saturday, March 28th - Relaxing and Getting Inspired in Entebbe

On Saturday, we headed off to Entebbe with 14 people. It started quite cozy, all in one of the big Taxis (Matatus). We enjoyed some relaxing hours at the beach, watching the Lake Viktoria and then went to the Wildlife Park. Some touched the elephant Charlie and others got frightened by the big python snake. The last hours before heading home were spent in a nice Indian Restaurant with a beautiful view at sports beach. 

Friday, March 27th - Another Day in the Field

Today was a great day for our project. We (Patrick, Innocent and Sven Benjamin) met at 9 am at MUBS Annex Campus and gathered in order to decide on how to make the most out of the day. We knew that we needed to be at Makere University at 2 pm to speak with an interesting entrepreneur but the rest of the day was yet unplanned. We decided to crash some "gates" and visited a startup incubator to find out if we could get some quality interviews. We went to Angels HUB and had a nice talk with a 23 old entrepreneur who is facilitating sales between individuals via a mobile app. It was quite impressive how he programmed his app and already had some good traffic on it. We then got surprisingly a skype call with one of our favorite entrepreneurs who created tech4farmers. It is a website and mobile application for farmers so that they can find out about market prices and already put out their offers instead of going to market and maybe wait all day until someone bites the hook. At 2 pm finally we talked to Matibabu, an innovative startup that uses a smartphone extension to carry out malaria tests. Quite impressive what these entrepreneurs are doing.

16th of March - The first day!

The first day! 

First time tea break, which in Uganda is not an afternoon tea, but a morning tea at 11am with fried donuts (which in Uganda are not round but sticks) and samosa’s, delicious Indian style fried vegetable triangles and of course tea. 

As if that did not fill us up… 1pm lunchtime: First time Ugandan traditional meal, and definitely not the last time! We were introduced to the typical lunchtime dish which is a composition of carbs: Matoke (plantane mash), steam cooked Irish potato (which at home we just call ‘potato‘), brown beans, rice, ground nut sauce (which we could call ‘peanut’ sauce) and greens. Fun fact: In Uganda the yearly consumption of Matoke is 172 kilo’s per person. Which makes you think, because eating half a kilo a day of plantane mash is quite an achievement. 

Svenja’s birthday. Yes, straight on the first day we celebrated the first birthday. Secretly, Nina and Pernille organized a cake for Svenja (picked up on their first boda boda ride). The cake turned out to be a true white iced wedding cake. Missing bride and groom, but not less delicious.  

As you can read, the first day was a lot about first time food. In the morning, we had a long round of introductions of CBS and MUBS professors. We met our research teams for the first time and went straight to the point: what challenges to expect when working together? Stereotypes and challenges of intercultural group work were written down to ensure that we were not going to make those same mistakes (which obviously are going to be made). Probably this is just an ex ante reminder of the inevitable ¨I told you so¨ by professors.

To round up the last 1^st timers: as the evening before we had our 1^st 2 hour wait for food (which turned out to be long, but not exceptional in Ugandan restaurants) and our 1^st salsa dance class in a Jazz club in the middle of Africa. - Which does sound like a random combination BUT, for some reason did do the trick and lured the CBS girls to the dance floor. -This night most took a safe bet and decided to go for a quick meal and straight to our 1^st night out at club Liquid. Not so local, but not less fun. The heat of the day had made place for a cold breeze. We danced away, but as this was just the 1^st night, it ended nice and early, saving our energy for the days to come. 

All in all, it the 1^st day was full of 1^st and left us hungry for 2^nds, keep posted for more!