choose our experiences to affect our
surroundings in a positive way I say
this because I’ll share with you right
now where I started and how I get to
this point the interesting thing is that
I come from a beautiful country Kosovo’s
Island the land of kings and queens rich
heritage and culture and we known for
being the pulpit of Africa so I had the
privilege of being educated in an
international school in Swaziland so I
had a lot of people that I was exposed
to from all over the world so I had a
global outlook on life so now that I
think about it I had ambition I had
Drive the sky was not even the limit and
yet I was in an environment that was a
bit slow on the progress side small
country there’s about 1.3 million people
incident 60% of those are the youth so
as a young person growing up in
Swaziland you kind of try and figure out
what am I gonna do here so you realize
ok I need to get an education so I did
that but before I even did that I was
always a creative that started my
leavers yeah when I made my dress and I
liked it but I have no choice I’m short
when I going to show up shops none of my
clothes fit me and so I decide I’m gonna
make my own dress and when I did that so
every occasion I went to I’d make my own
outfit and then people start asking who
made your dress that I did and then they
started getting me to design dresses for
them which I enjoyed I love being a
creative back at the ranch the folks
said you know you need to go study
something serious
and that means your accountant your
lawyer but fortunately for me I had a
mother or as a business woman
so as my grandfather so then I decided
I’m going to go study business because
one day I’m gonna own a business and
that’s what I did I finished my studies
and then I come back to Swaziland
and I’m like okay what are we gonna do
now and then I realize okay the folks
that I go get a job you know and I’m
thinking okay I look for that job and I
look for a job it doesn’t seem to come
now I remember
I have this passion so let me explore it
so I carried on doing that actually I
first went into a job and then after a
number of years I realized it wasn’t
working but on the side I’ve always done
the clothing it was a hobby and then so
I had an opportunity to go work in a
factory and in that factory I was
learning it was a clothing factory so I
learned how to run the factory I was
like hey finally it’s happening and then
I then realized that for me to actually
start my own business and run a factory
I need a lot of money I tried to find
finding I know I can fund a young person
start of fact you are you crazy
none of the spices all the factories in
Swaziland in case you didn’t know that
so that’s like no that’s not gonna
happen so then I realized okay I need to
start working backwards so I became a
designer and the nice thing about it is
that when I started designing and I
think I was privileged in a way is that
I entered a business competition so I
got a bit of money but they only brought
you like the assets and things you need
you didn’t get hard cash so then my
first show at International Festival
sorry where I had people from all over
the world coming and to this festival so
they hadn’t they didn’t know me they
don’t knew nothing about me so why did I
impression the head of my clothes that’s
the feedback I got and then I also
thought okay it’s visitors so I then
made it a point to make clothing that
was African inspired and that took off
and I realized there’s no I’m doing this
here in a creative way we could wear it
today it’s all traditional stuff we
wouldn’t wear so you wanna make school
clothes so I did that and then I started
looking at one of my opportunities here
can I get funding can I get it was just
very difficult to start a business and
the nice thing about it though is that I
had that drive and resolve that I’m
going to do this I’m going to make the
difference I came here to make a
difference and then after trying for
awhile to figure out what I’m gonna do
and you must also understand that you
come we’re your family I mean my parents
bless their hearts worked hard to afford
me the education I haven’t they
sacrificed and then so because of their
the sum total of their own experiences
they could take only take you so far in
terms of guiding and nurturing you or
taking you to the next level in your
life or business they also had their own
challenges
so do you now are looking around for
people to help for people to assist in
any way so what did this mean in this
environment
I couldn’t innovate in isolation so I
had to figure out who do I get how do I
get others to join me well in this quest
to make this environment conducive for
business for young people and then I
realized as well that okay we need to
actually as well as I’m growing as a
business I need to teach and at the same
same time learn so when I started my
business let me just go back a couple of
steps because of the challenges I was
facing
I called my business Ronnie the Ronnie
is a word in society that instructs two
or more people to jump so I was like
dedicated to all the procrastinators all
the people who are just delaying to
start their dreams for night let’s do
this
let’s jump let’s do this and so then
getting back to I’m trying to figure out
what are my next steps
I cannot innovate in isolation
as I’m learning as well I need to teach
I’m not a trained designer I studied
business and at the same time we need to
build the structures and the support
systems for ourselves we need to change
the mindset in the environment that
we’re in and we need to figure out how
we’re gonna do skills training
development and all the things that we
require because you need a workforce and
at the same time we need to affect the
policies so we’re able to work in this
environment and have opportunities so
there is a lot of things that were
challenging but we still have the result
that we can solve these challenges but
then again why does it mean for my
business what does it mean for me as a
designer then I realized that that meant
that my business would not grow as fast
as other business we have a very slow
growth rate because of all the things
that I need to do and then at the same
time I realized that ok it’ll take a
while for me to realize my full
potential my dreams all the things that
I want to do so stunted growth and then
came the fact that we need people we
need the support we need to build
capacity we need to find a way to
network go find strategic people and
strategic positions to help us on our
journey as young business people and
then I also realized that ok what are we
going to do what needs to be done so now
I’m working on those challenges and I’m
advocating for the youth to come
together and try and fix these
challenges and how do we inspire young
people who are not feeling inspired and
you also need to understand that Swasey
we have never really struggled were
peaceful nation
with your humble people known for being
humble and we have land we can farm we
can eat so the question is is perhaps
that we’re comfortable what do we need
to do to start moving towards building
this environment that is conducive for
young people to strive to achieve the
goals what support systems do we need to
build and that’s where I am right now
and so I’m speaking to all of you to
help us help each other and figure out
how we can unite how we can make dreams
possible how we can give opportunities
to those that feel like there are no
opportunities how we can all work as a
team and innovate and that’s how I
became the reluctant innovator thank you [Applause]