Tony Elumelu Foundation selects 1000 African entrepreneurs for programme

The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), has announced the selection of 1000 African entrepreneurs to join the third cohort of the foundation’s USD$100-million TEF Entrepreneurship Programme.

According to TEF, the programme saw over 93 000 entrepreneurs from over 55 countries applying, which was double the amount of applicants in 2016 and four times the amount of applicants in 2015.

The selected entrepreneurs will be trained and mentored over the next nine months to develop a solid business plan. Following their training, the cohort will be eligible to receive seed capital of up to US$10 000.

The TEF will aim to facilitate the development of 1000 entrepreneurs and their SMEs

“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,” said TEF’s founder, Tony Elumelu in a press release.

“We should not relent until we help them all realise their aspirations,” Elumelu continued.

In the breakdown of applicants, the agricultural sector makes up the bulk of the cohort, representing 29%. The ICT sector makes up 11% while manufacturing consists of the smallest group with 9%. The majority of applicants produced were from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Cameroon, according to TEF.

“The achievements of each successive cohort is clear evidence of the growing transformative power of our Programme,” said the CEO of TEF, Parminder Vir.

“We recently sampled 600 of our existing 2,000 entrepreneurs to analyse the Programme’s impact and have been impressed by the robustness and particularly the impact on employment we are beginning to have. We have also partnered with organisations, including Microsoft, GE, ECOWAS, to provide further benefits to our entrepreneurs,” Vir continued.