During TEDxChange in 2010 Consolata Ndayishimiye (head of the Chamber of Commerce in Burundi) and Leanne Bogers met each other and had an instant click. Consolata was looking for help to find the Burundi diaspora and attract business to get to Burundi. Leanne wanted to help former war torn African state which is now a democracy to get ‘back on the map’. The only thing Burundi needs is knowledge to get the state under the attention for both tourism (‘discover the hidden treasures of Africa’) and business.

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Boosting Burundi is looking for a business consultant!

We are looking for a consultant to work on a feasibility study to make a road map of the business traffic from and to Burundi.

We would love to hear from you if you want to help out! Please contact Jasper de Valk via jasper@tedxamsterdam.nl

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Boosting Burundi – The Beginning

Let’s spread all kinds of wonderful, inspirational and creative ideas at TEDx. But let’s not stop there. Why don’t we also try and  execute them? Or at least, try to. That is how Ideas Worth Doing started. And that’s what triggered me – when I visited the TEDxAmsterdam website – to start blogging for one of these IWD projects. Let’s put the action in it and actually try and make a difference.

The TEDx organization picked out five powerful ideas to be materialized  into a worthwhile project. So in the end, that important difference could be made. Each project has its own team, consisting of the initiator, project manager, blogger and a business consultant. One of these projects is called Boosting Burundi.

I got teamed up with Leanne Bogers, powerful and dynamic project initiator and with Hajo van Beijma, an experienced project manager on this matter. Luck was on my side, since I joined the IWD-team just in time to make it to the general get-together of all team members in Amsterdam. Every team presented themselves, their ideas, why they were inspired and what they thought, should be their final goal.

What better venue by the way, to hold this meeting than the ABN AMRO incubator Dialogues House? In the Green Room – seated on thinktank-ish giant balls – each team met each other, shared their story and talked about ways of getting full coverage within the entire TEDx community.

This is where I met Leanne Bogers. Some drive! So enthusiastic and so focused on getting Burundi back on the map. Leanne runs her own advertising agency Clev (www.clev.nl), is a mother and still finds time to put weeks and weeks of work into Burundi. It all began when she met the Head of the Burundi Chamber of Commerce, Consolata Ndayishimiye at TEDxChange.

As Leanne told me, there was an instant click between them. Something magical happened. At TEDxChange, Consolata Ndayishimiye talked on stage about Burundi. One of the poorest countries in the world.

She talked about helping female entrepreneurs back in the saddle, about the many disasters the country had to face and how Burundi people still have a lot of self-respect.

At this point, Leanne wanted to chip in. She thought of a campaign of getting Burundi back into focus. Working title would be: The hidden treasures of Burundi. Based on 3 major pillars. Business, tourism and the diaspora, the exodus of many talented Burundi’s, that left Burundi because of the civil war.  Leanne visited Burundi in December 2010 and came back piled up with energy and lots of ideas.

My job as a TEDx blogger will be keeping you all informed on the project flow. What has happened and what is about to happen?

If you have any questions, want to help us out in any way or just want to talk to us, here’s how you can find us on Twitter and LinkedIn:
Leanne Bogers  - @leannebogers, www.http://nl.linkedin.com/pub/leanne-bogers/5/712/2a8
Hajo van Beijma  - @hajobeijma, www.http://nl.linkedin.com/in/hajovanbeijma
Fatima de Vos  - @fatimadevos, www.http://nl.linkedin.com/in/fatimadevos

This story will be continued, so be sure to check us out on this page!

Oh, one more thing, we are still looking for a business consultant on the Burundi project. Interested in working on a feasibility study how to make a road map of business traffic from and to Burundi? Get in touch with the TEDx Ideas Worth Doing team via ilse@tedxamsterdam.nl.

Fatima de Vos

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