500 Nigerians among 1000 African entrepreneurs for TEF entrepreneurship programme

Tony Elumelu

Half of the new 1,000 entrepreneurs selected for the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s entrepreneurship programme are from Nigeria.

“Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, is home to 50 per cent of the 2017 cohort, with regional powerhouses Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon following respectively,” an emailed statement from the foundation read in part.

One thousand African entrepreneurs were selected from over 93,000 applicants across 55 African countries. This number represents over 100 per cent increase from 2016, and nearly quadruple of the 2015 application numbers.

“Agriculture led the pack with nearly one in three successful applicants. The next most popular sector was ICT (11 per cent) and then manufacturing (nine per cent), evidence of a paradigm shift away from extractives to a more sustainable mindset that embraces industrialisation and diversification,” the statement continued.

As with previous 2,000 successful entrepreneurs who have benefited from the TEF Entrepreneurship in 2015 and 2016, the new successful entrepreneurs will benefit from the programme’s “7 Pillars”, a toolkit of support including business training, mentoring, access to networks and funding of up to $10,000 – as they develop their business concepts to contribute to the transformation of the continent.

Speaking on the 92,000 applicants who couldn’t make the cut, Tony Elumelu, founder of the TEF said: “Standing here today to announce the successful applicants is bittersweet. There are 92,000 aspiring entrepreneurs who have been unsuccessful.

“These young African men and women have demonstrated passion and creativity in their applications and we should not relent until we help them realize their aspirations. I call on other successful Africans, and friends of Africa, to support us to do more.”

CEO of the foundation, Parminder Vir OBE, speaking on the impact of the programme in the last three years, said: “We recently sampled 600 of our existing 2,000 entrepreneurs to understand the extent of our Programme’s impact. We discovered they have turned our investment into real returns with 1,297 jobs created so far.”