Scott Picken is a serial entrepreneur, Global Property Fund Manager & Africa’s Leading Global Investor. He is author of the book, Property Going Global, which was written in association with Clem Sunter and widely recognised as the authority on International Property Investment.
He is a master real estate analyst and investment property acquisitions expert and active in several global markets including USA, UK, Australia, Asia and South Africa. Founder and Senior Managing Partner at Wealth Migrate, CEO and founder of IPS.
When Scott Picken went over to the USA he came across the Lemonade Day concept. He thought it was an amazing initiative to bring across to Africa. A hugely beneficial experience for our youth, especially those that are disadvantaged.
He spoke to Micahel Holthouse to try and bring it to South Africa, but initially Michael said “No”. However, after hard negotiations and persistence, Michael agreed. Knysna is very close to Scott’s heart and he lives in Knysna. We have decided to pilot the project in Knysna before going national and then continental.
Scott discussed the idea of Lemonade Day with Clem Sunter. Clem is one of the top recognised motivational speakers and he has agreed to endorse the initiative.
Vision and Mission
Our vision with lemonade day Africa, very simply, is to be one to one with America, we want to change the lives of 250 000 children in Africa.
We are starting in Knysna then rolling out across South Africa onboarding more and more cities as we go along. Our vision is to change the future of Africa by creating thousands of entrepreneurs and leaders, and in doing so, millions of jobs.
We plan to do this by using the Knysna event as our pilot project when we go national. Once piloted on Knysna we will fine tune and tweak the process and really get a feel for Lemonade Day and how it should work.
Once we have achieved Lemonade Day nationally, we then strive to take this initiative continental to change the lives of children all over Africa. As Knysna is close to our heart we will always remember our first Lemonade Day and continue to host it annually in Knysna, along with all the other cities.
The main mission behind Lemonade Day is to quip around 300-500 children in the Knysna community (between the ages of 8 – 16) with valuable entrepreneurial skill-sets that they will be able to use to plan, manage and run their own business, a lemonade stand.
We want our first year to have optimum impact on the children. This is why we have chosen 300-500 children, which will be around 150-250 stands.
We want our first year to be about forming proper and quality relationships with our partners, schools, children and sponsors. Our first year GOAL is not to be about handing out as many backpacks as possible, but rather about handing out backpacks AND getting the kids to build stands (conversion).