The
Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), the leading philanthropy empowering
young African entrepreneurs, will announce the beneficiaries of the 2021
TEF Entrepreneurship Programme at the official Selection Announcement
event holding in Lagos, and streaming live online, on November 12, 2021.
The ground-breaking hybrid event will unveil 4,800 African
entrepreneurs chosen from all 54 African countries who will be joining
the 2021 cohort of the Foundation’s annual programme.
Every
year on January 1st, the Tony Elumelu Foundation opens its application
portal to African entrepreneurs with businesses of less than five years.
This year’s beneficiaries have been chosen from a pool of over 400,000
applications, selected based on their innovative and impactful business
ideas. In line with the Foundation’s mission to catalyse
entrepreneurship in Africa, the selected beneficiaries will consist of
both new start-ups and existing young businesses in varying operational
stages across different sectors.
As
part of TEF’s objectives to ensure that African entrepreneurs are well
equipped to build investable and profitable businesses, each beneficiary
has undergone world-classbusiness management training and mentorship
conducted exclusively on TEFConnect,
the Foundation’s proprietary digital platform that provides
capacity-building support, advisory and market linkages to over 1
million Africans and counting. The platform’s unique trainingcurriculum
covered insightful topics such as Starting Your Business, Business
Management & Fundamentals, Leadership & Business Growth,
Marketing Strategy, Product Design, andSelecting & Building a Team,
amongst others.
Commenting
ahead of the Selection Announcement event, CEO Tony Elumelu Foundation,
Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, said: “This year, with support from our global
partners, we will be scaling our impact and empowering nearly 5000
entrepreneurs. A major priority for us at the Foundation for 2021
remains the economic recovery of small and medium scale enterprises
(SMEs) following the Covid-19 disruption to economic activities. We are
very excited to be unveiling the 2021 cohort of the Tony Elumelu
Entrepreneurship programme. I believe the $5,000 we are giving to each
entrepreneur will address some pressing demands and reduce the burden
brought about by the pandemic.”
“Year
after year, we are greatly inspired by the tenacity and quality of
business ideas that come out of Africa. This only proves that young
Africans need organisations like the Tony Elumelu Foundation who are
willing to take a chance on them and their ideas”, she concluded.
Through
the US$100million TEF Entrepreneurship Programme which launched in
2015, the Foundation empowers thousands of entrepreneurs annually, who
benefit from mentorship, business management training, access to new
markets, US$5,000 in non-refundable seed capital, and networking
opportunities to promote their businesses to a global audience. Since
the programme’s inception, TEF has trained over 1.5 million young
Africans and funded over 10,000 entrepreneurs across all 54 African
countries.
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