"My wife often says 'Thank you for staying on your vision'," he said.

Speaking of his mPedigree Network, Simons said: "An important side effect of this effort is the steady recovery of the more than $200 million that legitimate pharmaceutical companies lose daily to the genocidal trade of counterfeit drugs."

Just how important this is can be gauged from the fact that 30 percent of the drugs sold in Africa are counterfeit.

Initiating the session, NIIT's Pawar said: "Real entrepreneurship is not working for wealth but working for fulfilling needs. It's the excitement of identifying unmet needs. The question is of making it sustainable. You have a great time doing so."

"Africa has a lot of unfulfilled needs and desires. It's a challenge for young people," he added.

The "INDIAFRICA: A Shared Future" was born out of the second India-Africa Summit at Addis Ababa in May 2011, said Riva Ganguly Das, joint secretary (Public Diplomacy) in the Indian external affairs ministry.

"Governments collaborate but we wanted to engage the youth to get them talking about each other. We are not looking at a three-year programme that ends with the next Summit in New Delhi in 2014," Das added.