When you start to build something from zero, it increases your confidence. ‘Ashish Thakkar’, the 35 year old successful entrepreneur and commonly referred as Africa’s Youngest Billionaire, is the founder of Mara group and Mara foundation and co-founder of Atlas Mara. His Mara group approximately worth over $1 billion, by which he is made Africa’s youngest billionaire.

He is born in United Kingdom in a Gujrati family, but moved to East Africa as a teenager before founding Mara group in 1980 at the age of 15. The family had gone through the toughest time to live with a small amount of money. Due to poor financial condition he was forced to quit the school. His father started a small business to fulfill the basic needs of family.

At the age of 15, Ashish dropped out of school and started his own business with a $5000 loan. He started his humble journey by selling his new computer to his friend for a profit of $100. He realized that making money is not complicated or difficult and then he sold the second computer again.

He began to sell computer hardware brought from Dubai. In less then one year he became a big supplier of computer hardware to the continents of Africa. Over the years his company became one of the biggest IT companies in Africa across 26 countries with 7,000 employees and an annual income of more than $100 million.

Over the next ten years, Ashish expanded Mara group into manufacturing, real estate, agriculture and IT services. Ashish Thakkar recently, appointed as Global young leader in the World Economic Forum. For the new entrepreneurs he also runs Mara foundation which is a social enterprise. From nothing to youngest billionaire of a Country in less than 20 years Ashish became the youngest self made African billionaire.

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