Tony Elumelu Foundation Announces 2017 Entrepreneurship Programme Selection

The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) is has announced the selection of 1,000 African entrepreneurs, creating the  third cohort of the 10-year $100 million TEF entrepreneurship programme.

According to TEF, over 93,000 entrepreneurs from 55 countries and territories in Africa, applied-more than twice the 2016 applications and nearly four times 2015 

It stated that over the next nine months, the 2017 Tony Elumelu entrepreneurs will be trained and mentored, and will use the skills acquired to develop a business plan, following which they would be eligible to receive up to $10,000 in seed capital to implement.

According to the founder of TEF, Tony O. Elumelu, “For the third year, I am humbled by the quality and depth of the candidates; their determination and vision. I am so pleased that we can contribute in a meaningful way to the success of the next generation. Selection is getting more and more difficult, with the outstanding strength of all 93,000 applications and we are working on initiatives to help harness this extraordinary demonstration of Africa’s entrepreneurial talent.”

The Foundation long-term investment in empowering African entrepreneurs is emblematic of Mr. Elumelu’s philosophy of Africapitalism, which positions Africa’s private sector, and most importantly, entrepreneurs as the catalysts for the economic and social development of the continent.

The group stated that in terms of sectors, agriculture drew most applications, with 29 percent of applicants followed by ICT (11 percent) and manufacturing (9 percent). “Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon produced the most candidates. Women represent 39 percent of the applicant pool up from 36 percent,” it stated.

Elumelu further noted that “We are extremely happy that our attempts to attract applicants from across the Africa continent have been successful and the figures illustrate the real diversity of opportunity.”

CEO, Parminder Vir, added: “The achievement of each successive cohort is evidence of the transformative power of our programme. We recently sampled 600 of our 2,000 entrepreneurs to analyse the programme impact and have been impressed by the impact on employment we are having. We have also partnered organisations, including Microsoft, GE, ECOWAS, to provide further benefits to our entrepreneurs.”

The programme culminates in the two-day TEF Entrepreneurship Forum – the largest annual gathering of African entrepreneurs and the full entrepreneurship ecosystem from across the continent.

Source: https://www.thisdaylive.com