TEF announces selection of 1,000 Entrepreneurs for the 2017 edition

‎The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) is has announced the selection of 1,000 African entrepreneurs, for its 2017 or third edition of the 10-year, $100 million Entrepreneurship Programme. The foundation, in a statement made available to Daily Times announcing the 2017 successful applicants revealed that over 93,000 entrepreneurs, from 55 countries and territories in Africa, applied in the third edition, reflecting over 200 per cent of 2016 applications and 400 per cent of 2015 entries.

Following the conclusion of the selection process, over the next nine months, the 2017 edition if the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs will be trained and mentored, and will use the skills acquired to develop a business plan. At the end of their training, they would be qualified to access up to $10,000 in seed capital for their entrepreneurial and economic enhancement projects.

List of the selected entrepreneurs, the foundation disclosed, could be accessed in its website. The Programme culminates in the TEF Entrepreneurship Forum which ranks as the largest annual gathering of African entrepreneurs and the full entrepreneurship ecosystem from across the continent, bringing together entrepreneurs, mentors and business and political leaders in October, for a two day event in Lagos, Nigeria.

Tony O. Elumelu, founder TEF, announcing the conclusion of the selection process said commented: “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.”

The Foundation’s 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. Agriculture leads the sectors with (29%) of applicants coming from this sector, followed by ICT (11%) and manufacturing (9%), reflecting the industries of interest for African startups. Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon produced the most applicants. CEO, Parminder Vir OBE, said: “The achievements of each successive cohort is clear evidence of the growing transformative power of our Programme. We recently sampled 600 of our existing 2,000 entrepreneurs to analyze the Programme’s impact and have been impressed by the robustness and particularly 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.”

Source: By Bonny Amadi – Dailytimesng