Seeks more sponsors for additional entrepreneurs

By Yinka Kolawole

TONY Elumelu Foundation (TEF) has announced the names of 1,000 entrepreneurs selected across 37 countries in Africa for the 2017 edition of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP), the third in the 10-year $100 million programme.

The Foundation is however canvassing for more sponsors to ensure that additional young entrepreneurs are accommodated in the programme.

Announcing the selected 1,000 entrepreneurs, Founder and Chairman of TEF, Mr. Tony Elumelu, described the experience as “bitter sweet”. He noted that the Foundation could easily have selected over 1000 each year due to the sheer high quality of the applicants but its financial commitment of $100 million over 10 years only allows selection of 1000 applicants.

Products of entrepreneurship

“Standing here today to announce the successful applicants is bittersweet; we have 92,000 budding business leaders who weren’t selected for our programme and these young African men and women have demonstrated a lot of energy innovation and creativity in their applications. We should not relent until we help them all realize their aspirations.”

Entrepreneurship programme

In total, over 93,000 entrepreneurs from 55 countries and territories in Africa applied for the 2017 entrepreneurship programme – more than twice 2016 applications and nearly four times 2015. Over the next nine months, the entrepreneurs will be trained and mentored, and will use the skills acquired to develop a business plan, following which they will be eligible to receive up to $10,000 in seed capital.

On the opportunity to sponsor additional entrepreneurs, Elumelu noted that with over 63,000 fully completed applications, the Foundation has a strong database of business ideas and potential solutions to a myriad of challenges across Africa. “Since only 3,000 of these have been selected so far, it is a huge opportunity for the sponsors to collaborate with the Foundation to create solutions that work. For the sponsors, we have made the process simple. The entrepreneurship programme has a structure that works and TEF has garnered the expertise to run this programme successfully. Over the two years, the Foundation has built a strong programme infrastructure including the technology platform for application submissions, the screening and early-stage business validation of the applications by Accenture and internationally renowned selection committee.

“We have developed multilingual 12-week Startup Enterprise Toolkit (SET) which provides core business skills and necessary training for the entrepreneurs with the support of mentors, to guide the TEF Entrepreneurs on their entrepreneurial journeys. We have curated unique content, built a data bank of professional mentors from around the world, and established the TEF Entrepreneurship Forum, the largest gathering of entrepreneurs from across the continent in Lagos, Nigeria. On completion of the programme, the graduating TEF Entrepreneurs join the largest network of pan-African entrepreneurs on the TEF Hub, where they can cross promote their businesses, receive ongoing support and access to value-added partners, including funders.”

Agriculture leads the sectors with 29 percent of applicants, followed by ICT 11 percent and manufacturing 9 percent, reflecting the industries of interest for African startups. Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon produced the most applicants.