Tony Elumelu Foundation Encourages Young Ghanaian Entrepreneurs

TEF Alumni, UBA Ghana staff

Accra, January 20, 2018//-Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) has urged young Ghanaian entrepreneurs to participate in its annual TEF Entrepreneurship Programme, the largest African philanthropic initiative, to enable them grow their businesses.

The Coordinator of Ghana TEF Alumni Association, Godwin Mawutor Wuankah made the call at a day’s TEF beneficiaries’ breakfast meeting held in Accra, Ghana.

According to him, although the participation of Ghanaian entrepreneurs in the programme was encouraging, there was the need to increase the participation to an appreciable level.

Touching on what the Ghana TEF Alumni Association is doing to increase the participation, Mr Wuankah said: “We are planning to organise seminars and roadshows to encourage more young Ghanaian entrepreneurs to apply for the programme”.

Launched in 2015, the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme is the largest African-funded initiative devoted to entrepreneurship is envisioned: “To establish the preeminent Pan-African entrepreneurship programme, designed to equip entrepreneurs with the skills needed to build strong and sustainable businesses”, he stated in a presentation.

Its mission, Mr Wuankah reiterated is: “To identify, grow and create 10,000 startups across Africa that have developed ingenious solutions to pressing economic challenges in their communities and countries; to improve lives, generate employment, and create prosperity and wealth”.

While the programme goal is to create 1,000,000 new jobs and contribute $10 billion in additional revenues across Africa within the 10- year commitment.

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

Just early this month, the Foundation announced that on January 1, 2018, it is accepting applications for the fourth cycle of its entrepreneurship development programme, from outstanding African entrepreneurs who have start-up or business ideas with high growth potential.  The foundation is expected to support over 1, 000 young African entrepreneurs this year after going through a vigorous training.

Next Processes

It will announce this year’s nominees in March which will bring the total number of beneficiaries to over 4,3000 in just four years in the life of the programme.

From here, the 1,000 selected entrepreneurs will start a 12-week training programme in the first week of May to equip these start-ups with the basic skills required to launch and run their businesses at early growth stage.

It covers several topics including starting and scaling a business, business development, marketing strategy, effective management, product design etc.

During the same period Mr Wuankah said, each of them will have a mentor assigned to them. The TEF Entrepreneurship Programme model, according to him provides a credible technology-enabled platform for access to world-class mentors from across Africa and international.

These mentors have faced similar challenges and are able to steer up the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme startups on a successful path. These mentors’ role is to guide them on the journey of entrepreneurship.

Besides these, during the 12-week and beyond, the Foundation has webinars to further train and share tips, lessons, best practices, and the general words of encouragements.

In addition to this, a bespoke compendium of materials, case studies, videos, tasks, templates and interesting articles.

This includes the 12-week series on the Tony Elumelu (TOE) Way, shared concurrently. It expounds the core business values of the Founder, Tony Elumelu, with an aim to building the right character in the entrepreneurs.

After the 12-week training programme,  the entrepreneurs are required to write their business plans at the end of the 12-week training session. The written business plans will contain a much-detailed plan of their business ideas.

Their business plans are reviewed by Accenture, a leading global management consulting and professional services company which provides strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations services, which gives the 1,000 selected entrepreneurs feedback on the business plans which they will be implemented, she told the website.

So, all these steps culminated into the annual TEF Entrepreneurship Forum which has been described as the largest gathering of entrepreneurs in Africa. It is normally held in Lagos, Nigeria in the month of October.

The TEF uses the forum to create networking opportunities for the young entrepreneurs, further skills enhancement, engagement with policy makers, and building new relationships for themselves.

Having successfully gone through the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme, each entrepreneur will receive two tranches of seed capital, totaling US$10,000.

A  first stage non-returnable seed capital of US$5,000 will be given to each entrepreneur . While the second US$5,000 is either a loan or an equity, and is tied to clear milestones in a well articulated and relevant business plan.

After successfully going through the whole TEF Entrepreneurship Programme, all the selected 1,000 entrepreneurs receive certificates personally signed by Mr Tony Elumelu, Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation.

They will also receive entrepreneurship toolkits.

The Ghanaian TEF Entrepreneurship Programme beneficiaries who attended the breakfast meeting organised by UBA Ghana, commended Mr Tony Elumelu and his Foundation for coming to their aid.

By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report

info@africaneyereport

 

 

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