Musoma

Submitted by: Pyarali Jamal
By email of: Oct 22, 2009

President Jakaya Kikwete placing the National flag to Mr Ashis Thakkar, Uganda-based businessman who is on course to travel to outerspace on board the Virgin Galactic’s first flight to space early next year. The 28-year-old millionaire will fly the Tanzania flag on the space shuttle as a tribute to his Tanzanian mother who was born and raised in Mwanza.

WHEN it comes to scaling the heights, Ashish Thakkar is like no other man in Africa. Kilimanjaro’s 19,341 feet do not excite him.

And even though he is one of the wealthiest businessmen on the continent – he’s worth 1 billion US dollars — is he content to be perched at the top of the business tree? No, he’s not. This man is set to blast off into space. Yes, you read that correctly.

Mr Thakkar will be heading towards the stars, going 100 km beyond orbit into Outer Space sometime next year. The 28-year-old Uganda based millionaire has paid some 200,000 US dollars to go up there. What’s more, he is taking with him the Tanzania National flag.

President Jakaya Kikwete graciously gave him the banner at the State House in Dar es Salaam today, patting his back and bear hugging him for what he described as a unique venture.

“Thank you for deciding to carry with you the Tanzania flag into orbit”, the president said.

“This is a unique opportunity for us to promote the country.” President Kikwete also thanked Thakkar who has offered to produce for Tanzania a two-and-a-half minute TV advert that is to be paid for by his International conglomerate – Mara Group.

Born in the UK, Thakkar made it plain to the president that he continues to take pride in his family ties with Tanzania, as his mother was born and raised in Mwanza.

“In fact I am taking the flag up there to the space shuttle as a tribute to my mother.”

Thakkar has already completed extensive training which included exercises in a simulator that gave him the experience of traveling at 2,700 km an hour which is the speed of the space shuttle where he will stay for several days.

“Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity, he said, “and this is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Opportunities are something that Mr Thakkar has grasped before. He started at the bottom at the age of 15 by founding an IT company known as RAPS. He went on to set up a manufacturing plant, Riley Industries in Uganda.

Later on, pursuing his passion for real estate, Mr Thakkar co-founded Kensington Company in 2004. Today Mara Group has offices in Dubai, UK, Ghana and India.

Certainly, he can afford to become a founding astronaut in Virgin Galactic’s maiden flight to space. Mara Group has a portfolio of 1billion US Dollars and employs in excess of 2,000 people.

To look at him you would not immediately associate this small ( he’s 5′8”) and modest man with the legendary figures of space exploration: Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, all those guys with what was termed “the Right Stuff”. But Mr Thakkar clearly has what it takes. It’s taken him right to the top before.

Now he’s on his way up again.