| Intro | Tanzanian businessman and motivational speaker |
| Is |
Businessperson Motivational speaker |
| From | Tanzania |
| Gender | male |
| Birth |
25 January 1985, Tanzania |
| Age | 35 years |
| Star sign | Aquarius |
Patrick E. Ngowi is a Tanzanian businessperson and public commentator. He is the Founder and Chairperson of Helvetic Group, a company specializing in the sale and installation of photovoltaic systems.
Career
Ngowi started his first business at age 14 when he started selling top-up vouchers for mobile phones in high school. After graduating, Ngowi travelled between Asia and Tanzania and brought back trendy and cheap phones, and began buying inexpensive phones from low-cost manufacturers and selling them in the Tanzanian market. He enrolled at Denzhou University in China, studying renewable energy.
Patrick Ngowi founded Helvetic Solar in 2007 to provide and install solar equipment in Tanzania and the United States. The company was awarded KPMG’s Top 100 Mid Sized Companies in Tanzania Award in 2012. The firm has since evolved into a business group, if which he is the CEO of Helvetica Group.
Recognition
Forbes included Ngowi in its list of 30 under 30 Africa’s Best Young Entrepreneurs and Forbes list of Young African Millionaires to Watch in 2013. He was again listed in the 2014 list of Africa’s Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs through Helvetic Group. He was also named as East Africa’s Young Business Leader of the Year 2014 by Forbes and CNBC.
Ngowi has had multiple speaking roles at international events and in 2015 was elected as Chairman of the United Nations Global Compact in Tanzania. A year later, it was announced that Ngowi was one of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) Global Pioneers.
Philanthropy
Ngowi is the founder of the Light for Life Foundation, a non-profit social enterprise of which focuses on providing free solar and small wind power systems for youth and women in rural and off-grid parts of Tanzania.