TEF entrepreneurship: 5,000 recipients will each receive $5,000

On November 12, 2021, the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), Africa’s leading philanthropy for young African entrepreneurs, will announce the beneficiaries of the 2021 TEF Entrepreneurship Programme at an official Selection Announcement event in Lagos, which will be streamed live online. The groundbreaking hybrid event will introduce 4,800 African entrepreneurs selected from all 54 African countries to the Foundation’s annual program’s 2021 cohort.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation opens its application portal to African entrepreneurs with businesses that are less than five years old every year on January 1st. This year’s recipients were chosen from a pool of over 400,000 applications, with their innovative and impactful business ideas being the deciding factor. The selected beneficiaries will include both new start-ups and existing young businesses in various stages of operation across various sectors, in line with the Foundation’s mission to catalyze entrepreneurship in Africa.

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Each beneficiary has received world-class business 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, as part of TEF’s objectives to ensure that African entrepreneurs are well equipped to build investable and profitable businesses. Starting Your Business, Business Management & Fundamentals, Leadership & Business Growth, Marketing Strategy, Product Design, and Selecting & Building a Team were among the topics covered by the platform’s unique training curriculum.

Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, CEO of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, said ahead of the Selection Announcement event, “This year, with support from our global partners, we will be scaling our impact and empowering nearly 5000 entrepreneurs.” The economic recovery of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) following the Covid-19 disruption to economic activities remains a top priority for us at the Foundation in 2021. We are very excited to announce the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship program’s 2021 cohort. I believe the $5,000 we’re giving each entrepreneur will help meet some pressing needs and alleviate some of the pandemic’s burden.”