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Earn Your Leisure
Exploring Africa’s Hidden Opportunities: Rashad Bilal & Troy Millings Share Rwanda & Kenya Insights
00:12:11
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- [00:00]
Host 1
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Host 2
Facts.
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Host 1
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Host 2
Well, yeah, let's do it.
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Travel Expert
So let's talk about Africa. Vitally important. Where do I start? So if you're not familiar, if you haven't been following us on social media, we are taking a tour of Africa. We are in our second country. We started in Rwanda and it coincided with the NBA Africa League. And now we are in Kenya. Nairobi, Kenya. Shout out to all the Kenya diaspora. So we're, we're gonna hit a couple other countries before we leave. It's an extended, extended trip and we're here to talk to dignitaries, entrepreneurs and further our reach inside the continent. Well played. Gotta do it. Yeah. So first let's man Rwanda country. I don't think a lot of people are really understand like the level of.
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Host 2
Nope.
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Travel Expert
Infrastructure that they have. Man, they run this country, they run that country on a very efficient model is everybody told us it was the cleanest country in Africa. When I got there I realized why they said that because there's no trash they don't even have. They don't, they don't Allow plastic bags inside the country. Yes, it's like, it's like the Rwanda like for real. Like they don't allow plastic bags inside the country.
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Host 2
And plastic bottles will be out by next year. The last crop of plastic bottles are now being distributed and they won't be anymore going forward.
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Travel Expert
There's no, there's no trash on the streets. Streets is immaculate. I didn't see any homelessness when I was there. I didn't see any, any people begging for. Is super tight everywhere you go. Very militant. Very impressive. Extremely. And it's beautiful too. They got mountains. It looks like Switzerland or something. Like, it's like, it's all on the hills, mountains, green, very lush green. You know, we went to see the gorillas, so they got. There's a bunch of different things to do in Rhonda. But okay, now when we go to Rwanda, we meet a variety of different people. And everybody man child to Fatima, it's too many people to name, but Fatima, she's important. We'll get her on market Mondays soon. She's an entrepreneur that's actually building a real estate development out there. She kind of like laid out a whole itinerary for us and everything. But we met a lot of great people with like NBA Africa. Met a lot of great people in the government. A lot of opportunity for sure. Khalees actually owns a lot of property in Rwanda. Really? Okay, Police lives in Kenya. She moved to Kenya, but she was in Rwanda and she was telling us she owns a lot of property in Rwanda as well. So she's all over Africa just buying up land and doing a variety of different things. We gotta talk to her. We gotta talk to her eventually too. But they were very impressed about Invest Festival and we are here working on behalf of Invest Fest also. I'll say that we're here working to try to get people to come speak at Invest Fest for sure. Stay tuned, stay tuned, stay tuned. And we're also working on behalf of trying to get just representation from the continent at Invest Fest. So there will be panels about investing in Africa at Invest Fest. There will be pre. There will be presence inside the vendor marketplace at a high level, let's just say that to promote investment on the continent because, you know, it's crazy. We, we went to a restaurant yesterday and when we was in Rwanda and shout out to Tuma and he, he, he told us like a local restaurant. So we met, we met an entrepreneur and older gentleman. But you can tell like he's like a very well respected, savvy entrepreneur. He's like one of those guys. And he has a variety of different businesses outside of just being a restaurateur. But after, after we, we ate, we. We had a conversation with him and he said, he said, I need you. He said, and quote, he said, well, first he said, he said, he said, this is. He said, how. Yeah, I like it. How you like Rwanda? How you like Africa? I'm like, we know, we love it. He's like, this is your continent. This is your continent. He's like, he's like, have you bought property out here yet? I'm like, he's like, what you waiting for? I'm like, I'm like, you know, we just trying to figure it out. He's like, this is your continent. He's like, now I want you to tell your people in America this is what he says. I need you to tell your people in America. He said. And it was a very respectful way, but he was like, like the chains that you have on your neck. He was like, he was like, cash. He's like, just cash those chains in and buy a property. He's like, invest in Africa. He's like, invest. He's like, anywhere. But he was like, you know, since we in Rwanda, that was. He was champion app. He's like, anywhere on the continent. He was like, look. He was like, just try it out. Just buy one property. Like, he was like, literally like going. He was like, look. He's like, why would you. Why are you staying there? Like, why are you in a country that doesn't want you? He's like, yo, we need you here. Like, he's like, tell. He's like, tell your people. He's like, take the chains, like cash in the chains and buy a house in Africa.
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Host 2
Yeah. He broke it down to a science. He was like, yo, how much would a house cost you, let's say in Atlanta? Like maybe 400, 000. He's like, how much rental income would you get for that? Like, I don't know, maybe three thousand, three, five hundred. He was like, I could buy a hundred and twenty five thousand dollar house and get the same rent here. Why would you waste the money?
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Travel Expert
Yeah. And houses in Atlanta is way more than that.
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Host 2
Now we can talk about.
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Travel Expert
1.1 million, $2.2 million. But yeah, he's very educated on, on the geopolitical landscape. Because he used to live in Canada.
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Host 2
Yep.
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Travel Expert
Okay. He was. We had a conversation about the political landscape currently in America. We had a conversation about real estate prices in Atlanta. We had a conversation about minerals In Africa. And he was a very, he's very educated person when it comes to the world. But his, his, his thing was, why are you wasting your time over there? He's like, even if you don't come full time, like, just have something. He was like, he's like, he's like, I want you to know and I want your audience to know that this is your continent.
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Host 2
Straight up.
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Travel Expert
Say it again, please, because they may not have heard it the first time. And this is coming from a person who's in, In Africa, right? Because I know they're trying. This is coming from an African that's living in Africa. Now when he say it's your content not to say, like, it's not his too, but he's saying like, it's ours. So he's like, look, why are you not here? Why, why don't. Why don't come? Like, why don't come here? Like, we got the infrastructure, we got everything. We running the government. He's like, he's like, why, why, why, why, why aren't more people not coming?
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Host 2
I. I'll just add to, to being in Rwanda outside of it. Yes. Being. I feel like it was the safest. I don't think I felt any safer anywhere that I've been in the world. Definitely one of the safest places. Definitely one of the cleanest places as well. But how government works with the private sector and works with its citizens is pretty impressive. Like, everybody has the same vision to make sure that they promote Rwanda to be the brightest and be it full of opportunity. Everybody's on that same mission, no matter where. If it's the restaurant, if you. You're going, you're walking down the store, if you're in the car with the driver. Everybody has that same vision of loving the government, but loving what they can help do in terms of infrastructure. So we went to a few properties and shout out to Fatima again. But she brought. She brought us to her development, which was affordable housing, which is incredible because sustainability that they've been able to create. We were sitting here like, why are we doing this here in America? Like, why? What kind of codes are they passing in infrastructure and technology? Are they creating that? They're able to do this at scale in a very short amount of time. And then we saw luxury housing. I know everybody's like, the first thing when they think of Africa is not luxury, but why wouldn't you, right? Like, there's people who have wealth and there's people who are. Want to obtain it. And so when we Went to the luxury part was like, man, this is incredible. Like real cities. And so a couple of things that I noticed was like, obviously, who's running it, who's the architect, who's the engineer, who's the interior designer, all look like us. But on top of it was like, everybody's pretty young that's doing this. The, the, the. The team that we met, I mean, maybe mid-40s or younger, which is incredible.
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Travel Expert
That's incredible.
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Host 2
And we've seen. We've seen a few Americans that have gone there and said, like, what? There's no need for us to go back.
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Travel Expert
Well, there's a bunch of Americans that expats that I moved there. There's a bunch of people that was living in America that moved back or got educated in America. Fatima, she actually went to Warren School of Business and came back. So there's a lot of people that are like, not really pressed about trying to just live in America. Like they had. They could have the option to live there if they want to, but it's like too much money, too much opportunity, too friendly, too peaceful, anything. The thing about the country, too, is that they had the genocide that happened 30 years ago. So if you've seen that movie Hotel in Rwanda, which. They have very strong views about that. But so they. What were the views? Not to cut you off.
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Host 2
They said it was some, some. Some truths and some falsehoods.
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Travel Expert
Yeah, they said, they said this is a lot of. Afraid of license. Yeah. A lot of misrepresentation.
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Host 2
A lot of misrepresentation.
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Travel Expert
A lot of misrepresentation was done in that. On that. That's what they say. But it's like Singapore, there's no smoking. So I asked them yesterday, there's no. You, there's no. There's no drugs in Rwanda. You can't smoke weed, so you're not going to see nobody. It's a very militant place. Like, if you've been to Singapore, you can kind of. You understand what I'm saying? Like, it's, it reminds me of Singapore. Like, it's, it's, it's very militant. The nightlife is. They don't really have, like, it's not like on the west side. Like, they don't party to, like, you know, but everybody's not a partier. So some people just want to just have a peaceful, just quiet life and just enjoy their life. Right. So that's, that's. That's Rwanda. Now we're in Kenya.
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Host 2
Hold on, before we leave, because you talked about entrepreneurs and we be Remiss if we didn't say that. We went to a tech hub inside of Kigali. And when you want to talk about just brilliance. So this tech hub is pretty much solving the problems for the continent. And so a lot of people are coming here, investors are coming here, but a lot of the billion minds of the continent are coming here. We spoke to a gentleman and we'll probably have him on market monies as well. Who's creating infrastructure for. I guess it would be like W9 workers in a sense, right?
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Travel Expert
No contracted workers, no gig economy. The gig economy, like Uber drivers?
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Host 2
Oh, oh, well, yes. And, but that was part of it. They, it was the Uber economy, obviously from people getting jobs. But the people who do a lot of the contracting was like, how do you know how, how much they've worked? How do you know the projects that they worked on? There's no data set for it, which is not a problem. Like, we don't think about that. But like that's a real issue. If you have a lot of infrastructure and you have a lot of people that are working for it. It would be like when you go to the side of the road and you pick up somebody who's, and you're like, I need you to fix something. Like, there's a country that's doing that, but nobody's getting documented. And when they go to banks or institutions to try to get loans or try to have credit, there's no paperwork on them. So how do you create the infrastructure that has that paperwork? And now when they go to an institution to say, hey, this is the body of work I've done, here's my work history, here's how much I've made, here's what I need. That becomes more of an easier process, which is not something that sitting there thinking about, I'm like, wow, that makes a lot of sense. How many countries need something like that? I mean, just, just a lot of brilliance that's happening.
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Advertiser
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- [14:12]
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