3-18-08 Tuesday

Last night we ended up at Oyster Bay on another adventure away from the group. It seems our mini outings keep getting better and better. Lisa (my roommate here) ended up meeting a venture capitalist for SME's in Tanzania in the lobby. She was very interested in our trip and meeting us to discuss possible opportunities and issues that are in Tanzania from her experience living here as an American for 4 years. Kathleen Charles is her name and she has been in Africa for a total of 12 years. She is very bright and speaks 4 languages.

She also works with Google.org whom recently held a business plan competition in Tanzania. Katie, Aaron,Lisa, and myself went to Oyster Bay (where the wealthy diplomatic residential area is) to a small plaza facing the water. We ate at a great restaurant and had a break from all the curry I have been eating to have a pasta dish featuring fresh prawns and tomato sauce. We talked about both her and our experiences here and the state of the economy. She spoke warmly of the people here. At a table on my right was a large group of diplomats from many different countries, which was interesting to see. After dinner we walked around the plaza for a bit. After we got back to the hotel we caught the news in the lobby and watched ourselves featured on the news for our meeting with Reginald Mengi, which was fun to watch. We were also featured in the newspaper the next morning.

We went to the University of Dar es Salaam today where we listened to both a Tanzanian professor and our own professor lecture. We learned much more about where the struggles and opportunities lie in the economy here. This is extremely beneficial to our business plan development. We also were introduced to the Tanzanian CEO round table which is a panel consisting of 40 members who review legal frameworks and policies. The main issue seemed to be changing the mindset of the people from a socialist thinking to a capitalist way of life. Another major challenge is a customer oriented way of thinking (which comes up again and again) and how to change to a capitalist society to meet the customer need, you have to be ready to serve them. As the country is young at only 46 years, because of technology and the positive example of other capitalist countries they are steadily moving along positively.

Tonight we relax : )