<NB: Obama leaves USA on Thursday evening EST and arrives Kenya Friday morning EST. Please change top line of intro accordingly>
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President Obama ?leaves for Kenya on Thursday? for a four day trip to Africa.
It's the first time he's visited his father's homeland since taking office and is likely to be the last time he visits the continent as president.
He will be attending the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, before going to Ethiopia, as our US correspondent Kate Fisher reports
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VO: The Swahili Village in Maryland does a brisk lunchtime trade. Kenyan owner Kevin Onyona knows the importance of entrepreneurship. Six years after opening this restaurant, he's expanding into a new bigger location next month.
"If I speak directly for the country of Kenya, over the last several years this has been the driving force where the country has found some solace and growth. Politically they have struggled in one way or the other but there is this surge now that people like myself find the opportunity to express themselves though business.And if you think about there is no such place like Africa. We have every mineral you can think about, we have every opportunity you think about it. It is the next frontier if you think about it, it's wide open. And so the policies of aid should really start moving towards trade."
That's just what the Obama Administration is trying to encourage and why the President has taken the Global Entrepreneurship Summit to sub-Saharan Africa for the first time. Scott Eisner is the Vice President of African Affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce.
"I think in Africa you've got plenty of people willing to take risks, plenty of amazing ideas coming out of the continent. The challenge becomes scaleability and I think that's where conferences like GES where they bring together entrepreneurs and investors enable you to come to a much greater understand of what's needed to bring your product to market."
But there are Africans who think that as America's first half-African president, Obama has not done enough for his father's continent. Kevin disagrees.
"Obama being president of the us period has helped the continent. I know that he has done very good things behind the scenes for the continent."
The day before the President boards his plane to Kenya – he held a reception here in the white house to celebrate the signing into law of the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Marking an important week in American African relations which began with the visit of Nigerian President Buhari to Washington and ends with the visit of US President Obama to his father's homeland.
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