2 years after leaving the bank at senior level, Jasper hit a low. A mix of loses marred with failure in health may have marked the end of a man who had tried tens of businesses by the time he was out of college. It is said that when it rains it pours! This was that time. Interestingly even at this time I had battles to fight, not just about health but this was as well the time I was battling one of Africa’s legal giants in court over my Trade Mark – Kibo Capital Group.
Having had a good run in the financial industry, it was easy route to retire in peaceful quite at the village and let everything go.
But that was not what life had taught me.
Encountering big challenges and not running away from them has been a hallmark in my life.
At a very young age and being a lean person, I always challenged other bigger boys to wrestling and most often they would surrender or we tied in scores.
Described as a person who was always in the best of books with everyone, a hardworking and jovial child. I was known for debates and drama / acting in the whole of Turkana.
When I was admitted to Kabianga Boys High School, I missed that chance due to school fees issues and was sent to a remote school Katilu Boys Secondary School in southern Turkana, but here too, I did my best to pass my O’ levels and joined the prestigious University of Nairobi, taking math and chemistry.
In Nairobi, I learnt a lot of skills. Never wasting time in job hunting, I already had taught myself to drive and repair cars in Lodwar before joining university, I added mobile phone repairs to that hat.
I briefly taught at a school in Dandora before joining the bank.
Lessons of never giving up are deeply embedded in me.
Lessons of perseverance and always finding solutions to problems, led me to innovate in the mobile sector, where in 2015, I already had the drafts for the e-Receipting solutions where paperless payments saves the planet from extinction.
Being a salesperson, I shared my now registered e-Receipt solution within the industry that needed it the most; Telecommunications and banking.
I got robbed a few months later by the banks as they implemented the Uitlity Model without my consent. Safaricom, did it nearly 4 years later after presentation where they dismissed it as ‘dead on arrival’.
With good and honest competition, such things wouldn’t be happening.
A Utility Model lasts only 10 years and from the date of registration in 2017, Kibo Capital Group Limited’s is supposed to last up to 2027, then anyone can use it.
One keeps wondering how corporates in Kenya join government in preaching about entrepreneurship yet do these to start ups.
It is that time in my life again where I will not run away from a battle, knowing too well what the win means to millions of honest hard working Kenyans at this moment in time and more to come.
Theft of intellectual property must be punishable by long prison sentences as it stifles growth and in turn renders many would-be-employed youths jobless and destitute. Responsibility ought to rest with the executives of the thieving corporations.