Meet some of Papua New Guinea’s brightest entrepreneurial minds.
PNG’S BRIGHTEST MINDS AT WORK
An estimated 50,000 small-to-medium businesses (SMEs) in Papua New Guinea help power the nation’s economy.
The PNG Government wants that number to grow to 500,000 by 2030. This growth will create two million jobs and ultimately SMEs will contribute 50 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.
The Prime Minister, James Marape, has said the government will inject 200 million kina a year for the next 10 years into the sector, as well as offer tax incentives to SMEs.
Often, the SMEs are headed by young people who have had a simple idea and developed it into a thriving business. Here, PNG Now meets six rising entrepreneurs.
01 Rebekah Ilave 29 Tech whiz
Port Moresby
Rebekah Ilave and co-founder David Valentine have created Niunet, a local high-speed wireless network that provides free access in PNG to educational content, including TED talks, opensource textbooks, Wikipedia and video tutorials.
Their education start-up aims to help learning institutions deliver targeted educational content to students without internet access. It came about in response to the high cost of the internet in
PNG, which they say keeps information out of the reach of young adults in the country.
Niunet operates without the need of cellular network data or phone credit. All you need to tap in is a Wi-Fi-enabled device, such as a laptop, tablet, or a smartphone.
Before co-founding Niunet, Ilave was working as an environmental analyst. “We were doing community outreach in some of the most remote parts of the Gulf Province, to talk about conservation and resource management with them,” she says.
“Some of the villages there had schools that only went up to Grade 2, and had a four-hour canoe trip to the nearest clinic. It was heartbreaking.
“That night my team leader told me something I’ll never forget: ‘How can we talk with these people about working with us, when their basic needs like health and education aren’t being met?’ That struck a chord with me, and it resonated with me for another year before I quit my job. I started developing Niunet full-time, and now I’m so much closer to living life in line with my beliefs.”
02 Amanda Tau Kanasa 30 Fashionista
Port Moresby
Amanda Tau Kanasa runs a fashion retail business called Pacificana, focusing her sales through online channels and through retail spaces such as POM City Markets.
Her slogan, ‘look good, feel good’, has cemented her brand as one of the most well-known social media retailers in PNG.
Kanasa’s range of Pacific-themed clothing and accessories suits all ages and sizes.
Like many, she saw getting into business as a way of working in her own time and achieving financial freedom.
“I love seeing people look good and feel good and I also love that through this I can show people that no matter how far they have gone in their education, there is always a way to achieve success. It’s not just about making money, it’s about making a difference in people’s lives.”
She prides herself on her work ethic and customer service, spending up to 16 hours a day working on her business, which she says also brings her lots of enjoyment.
“I know one day all the hard work will pay off. If there is anything we focus on, it is making sure our customers know just how important they are to us.”
03 Idau Raka 38 Burger queen Lae
Just two years after Idau Raka started selling hamburgers in Lae, she has a following of
3000 people on Facebook for her Boss LAEdy Burgers home-based business.
Customers place their orders online and pick up from her house daily. Lamb kofta burgers, kumul burgers, wicked (chicken) wings and hot mess chips are some of the favourites on the menu, which has a price range of 5–30 kina.
Raka runs the business while maintaining a full-time job with a courier and parcel company, but is helped by her supportive family – aunty Darusila Ranu, nephew Vian Kevon and her son Jack T Raka during school breaks.
“My passion for cooking and being creative in the kitchen were the two main factors that nudged me to start my journey,” she says.
“As well as that, I wanted to create a second income because I realised my fortnightly pay wasn’t enough to support my family of five.”
Boss LAEdy Burgers started in 2018 and early sales and the strong following on Facebook gave her confidence to invest back into the business in 2019. This year she is putting money aside for future investment.
05 Ginia Sialis 36 Cakes and catering Port Moresby
Eight years ago, Ginia Sialis wondered what would happen if she ever lost her office job, so she set about starting up a part-time business.
She came up with the idea to sell tapioca cakes to her colleagues during lunch hour. The cakes were a huge hit.
About 12 months later, when Sialis did lose her office job, her cake-loving customers stayed loyal and continued to order her little delicacies.
This gave her the motivation to set up a fully-fledged cake and catering business, Tapioca Delight, named after the first cakes she sold.
“I’m so happy I set out to sell that first tapioca cake from my lunch box,” she says.
Sialis runs the business with her husband and has 11 staff.
04 Dean Arek 26 Digital content provider Port Moresby
In 2016, the world came to Port Moresby in the form of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.
Dean Arek, just out of his teens, noticed that many of the soccer fans arriving into the country at that time were pleasantly surprised by what they found, despite the widespread negativity they had seen about Papua New Guinea on the internet.
Arek recalls that online searches about
PNG automatically brought up stories about corruption, violence and even cannibalism.
He set about righting the wrong and started building websites to showcase PNG in a positive way.
“I wanted to counteract all the negativity online,” he says.
The websites kickstarted his entrepreneurial life in digital content creation and today he runs his own photography, videography, graphic artwork and website creation business, called proficienteC.
His passion for digital content can keep him going 48 hours without sleep. “It really sets my soul on fire. I love what I do,” he says. “The challenge of operating in a space that has very little structure and norms is the greatest form of motivation there is. What’s even better is I know so many amazing creators who are living their dream life through digital content creation.”
Arek has two photographers (one permanent and one casual) engaged in his photography business, which operates under the arm of Pixels Perspective. (You can see some of their work in this issue of PNG Now.)
He does most of the graphic design work but outsources when the workload gets too big. He is looking at expanding his team in the area of social media management.
She says an important philosophy of the business is helping community with employment opportunities.
“We have a team of 11 staff who now have a full-time job thanks to our business. We want to do our part to bring Papua New Guineans out of poverty and into leading meaningful lives and improved standards of living for themselves and their families.”
With strong Christian values built into her business and personal life, she believes it’s what sets them apart. “My husband and I have gone back to our biblical roots to see what God’s word says about business, finance and life – and it’s all there! Not many people do this nowadays.
“We’ve been in business since 2013 and can say we saw the biggest improvement in our lives and our business when we started making our faith walk, a 24/7 commitment rather than just a once-a-week Sunday church attendance.”