Walking Through Fire: Creating Wealth, Enhancing your Power and Prestige by Dr Maurice Bolo is a definitive publication on entrepreneurship, taking the reader through a journey investigating the theoretical concepts advanced by scholars in the field and marrying them with real life experiences by the author.
The author -- a science, technology and innovation policy expert -- is a youthful man who is in touch with current trends in technology and the kind of opportunities it offers to the youth in an age when information and communication technologies are perhaps the biggest tools available to entrepreneurs.
The focus on youth is not for nothing. Latest figures from the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) indicate that Kenya's total unemployment rate (as a percentage of labour force) stands at 9.2 per cent. The 2017 report shows that among the youth, the unemployment rate is 22.2 per cent. With these figures, Kenya is worse off than its regional counterparts such as Uganda and Ethiopia, whose rates are 3.6 per cent and 5.5 per cent, respectively.
Over the years, the Government has grappled with how to stem the rise in unemployment. Initiatives such as Kazi kwa Vijana, mooted during the coalition government, were temporary and required limited skills leaving the youth without expertise and options to fall back on at the end of the contracts.
One of the most talked about path out of unemployment has been that of entrepreneurship. To this end, the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF), Uwezo Fund and other youth targeted entrepreneurship programmes have used a mix of training and credit facilities to youth organisations.
In a recent interview, YEDF chairman Ronald Osumba said the uptake of fund was below target. "Twelve years since the fund was set up, only two in 10 young people know about the fund," and called on more young people to apply for loans.
Funds alone are not enough for business success. Dr Bolo illustrates in Walking Through Fire that a combination of personal attributes, skills and expertise, an eye for gaps in the business environment and grit to fill those gaps are the tools one needs to be successful in the entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurs fail, but only those who learn from their failures live to tell their stories. Readers of this book will empathise with the writer's own challenges in a business venture that nearly left him homeless.
Walking Through Fire should be standard reading for anyone who wants to venture into entrepreneurship while those with teething problems could as well learn that they are not alone.
The book is well-written with a narrative that flows, weaving the technical and personal for a wholesome experience to the reader.
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