Assek celebrates five years of service

 

By James Nyaigoti,

The Association of Startup and SME Enablers of Kenya (ASSEK) today held a conference to celebrate five years of existence where various partners, startups, SMEs, and entrepreneurs discussed their development and growth to a maximum level.

ASSEK is a strong network of more than 120 member organizations. These are all entrepreneurial support organizations that are working with them to support the start-up growth and scale-up of their businesses. They are based across the entire country.

“They are based across the entire country. Assek membership is only 10,000 Kenya shillings currently. There’s no way we have that as an affordable price because you want to ensure all entrepreneur support organizations in the country but to join and not buy it from the cost of entry, which are some of the benefits of being a member and so you get access to such events where, for example, we’re hosting an annual conference in 2023, where we had the ministry of investments and trade present in the meeting. ” Mercy Kimalat, ASEK CEO,.

On the occasion, Hon. Kibutha Kibwana, former Makueni Governor, observed that there is a Startup Bill proposed that will offer some incentives, such as tax breaks and access to credit for startups. William Ruto, Kenya’s President, has confirmed that the Startup Bill 2022, which seeks to provide employment opportunities for Kenyan youth and tax breaks for startups, will be signed into law by April 2024.

The CEO further added that the other thing is looking at how policy changes are also happening. You know, we had the Kenya Revenue Authority present and are talking about how they’re coming up with a policy specifically for the MSMEs because that is a huge tax base that they’ve been considering, but also coming up with a policy that is good and conducive for that sector. So in a way, we’re seeing a lot of changes both on the policy side and on the investment side. We received more than $1 billion in investments into the country over time—not just in one year, but over time, we’ve seen that happening.

“Join us, and you don’t have to be only an entrepreneur support organization. You can come and partner with us. The reason for this is that to build an ecosystem, we need a village where every single person has to play their role. So whether you are in academia or not, come and partner with us to see how we can show them the industry-academia linkages. If you are a corporation, let’s see how we can strengthen the corporate and startup linkages as well. If you’re an investor, we have a good pipeline of innovation hubs and a strong community of startups and SMEs that can tap into that kind of funding. And generally, anyone else who’s a stakeholder in the community and is a beneficiary of all this partnership with ASIC should join us and be part of our community. Let’s build Kenya. To what you want to see it become.” Added Mercy Kimalat.