MoTIV, located on Old Port Bell road near National Water & Sewerage Services (NWSC) offices, is a work space for creators who mainly need exhibition room for their work.
MoTIV is open to creators in the fashion, art, beauty, metal fabrication, media, film and entertainment, carpentry, design businesses.
Kawunguzi explains, “The aim of setting up this maker space is to help people produce high quality in more commercially viable quantities by ensuring we help them from sourcing material to producing viably in good quantities with quality controls in place and then helping the entrepreneurs get market for their products.”
Facilities on site
MoTIV has work space for over 500 businesses. The space comes equipped with a modern kitchen for those in the food business, an apparel and garments workshop for those in that field, a specialised zone for carpentry, metal fabrication, creatives to mention but a few.
For those in media, TV and film production, a fully equipped content production facility with modern production equipment, content creators and producers plus a mini theatre that can sit a sizeable audience to liven up events and production.
“The target here is to create films, sitcoms, dramas and other productions that have the quality to compete on the international market.”
A logistics centre has also been set up to help with coordination of supply, logistics and storage especially for large quantity orders both local and export. “With over 700 SQM available here, entrepreneurs have adequate space to work out the logistics side of their ventures in one place considering this aspect has been a growth impediment and challenge to many entrepreneurs” Japheth Kawanguzi notes.
What are the users saying?
Gerald Puto, the co-founder of Vodo Art lab and society, joined the MoTIV space in August 2020.
He says he was attracted by MoTIV's vision which encourages creatives like him to think outside the box, bump into collaborators all the while enriching his interior design business to get him from idea to full production faster.
Through MoTIV’s open workspace environment, Puto says he has met clients he would not have otherwise. He expects to make bigger connections in his field through MoTIV going forward besides getting more trainings and having his products marketed through the platform.
Brenda Imai, the founder of Malkia Jewellery, says she started out at MoTIV in June 2020. Her big catch has been the opportunity to sell and distribute her products through MOTIV market that has greatly boosted her sales.
She says, “l have got a bigger following online as a result, received training in Branding, pricing and packaging through MoTIV besides the growth in sales.”
Going forward she expects the space to help her grow her online presence further, move her business from a start up to a continental brand and cross borders even beyond Africa in reach.
MOTIV Market
To ease the production process of clients, MoTIV market, an online marketplace, ensures products made locally to the international market.
https://shop.motivug.org
The aim of the platform is to offer a route to not only the local but international market as well for local producers. This will not only grow their revenue and production but will also create more jobs and business opportunities for local producers.
In the medium-term outlook MoTIV's founder Kawanguzi hopes these projects will create at least 300,000 additional jobs through their value chain locally and this number will rise in the long term.
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