How Some Of Tony Elumelu Foundation Beneficiaries Are Adding Value Across Africa

In March 2023, the Tony Elumleu Foundation (TEF) founded by the prominent champion of entrepreneurship in Africa – Tony Elumelu -unveiled its tenth cohort.

The development totals the number of young African entrepreneurs who received funding, mentoring, and capacity-building support from the Foundation to 20,000 – with over 400,000 direct and indirect jobs created.

The creation of the advocate of the economic philosophy of Africapitalism – which posits that the private sector, and most importantly entrepreneurs, as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the African continent – disbursed over US$100,000,000 directly to young entrepreneurs across the continent as part of the process in achieving this feat.

Checks revealed how some of the earlier beneficiaries of the foundation which started in 2010 and has doubled its initial commitment at press time, are contributing to the development of Africa.

Among the beneficiaries is Bosun Tijani, a 2012 Tony Elumelu Foundation leveraging,  among other things, the gains of the interaction to impact on immeasurable scale as the Minister for Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy of Nigeria.

In 2012, Bosun Tijani the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Co-Creation Hub secured a $100,000 investment to support the development of the technology innovation centre that provides a fertile nest for Innovators and Creatives solving pressing social problems in Africa.

Tijani passionately harnessed the opportunity and went on to transform into been named one of the 100 Most Influential People on the Continent by New Africa Magazine and the acquisition of Kenya’s iHub.

These feats and others with the funding, mentoring, and capacity-building support from the Tony Elumelu Foundation as fulcrum prepared him for the current position.

Founded in October 2016  by Daniel Oulai from the western region of Côte D’Ivoire, Grainothèque (Grain Library) was able to get the backing of the Tony Elumelu Foundation based on its far reaching focus – food security through helping rural farmers and promoting the genetic diversity of African food plants and the microbiological potential of the soil.

Oulai started the initiative to address the sufferings of farm producers forced to sell their crops at poor prices in the face losing the bulk of their produce to poor pest control.

He founded Grainothèque as a business created to provide social support to farmers in rural areas by providing access to quality seeds, relevant data and necessary technological tools needed for maximum agricultural output, precision management and general improvements in food production.

Securing TEF’s backing in 2017 has helped to entrench the initiative  a social innovation laboratory for young rural entrepreneurs and a social enterprise that works to promote the genetic diversity of African food plants and the microbiological potential of the soil.

In 2019, Bethelhem Dejene Abebe was among the 2,100 African entrepreneurs selected to benefit from the TEF-UNDP Entrepreneurship Programme, where she received $5,000 seed capital, mentorship and the TEF business training on entrepreneurship.

 She is the Co-founder and CEO of Zafree Papers, a company that is introducing a 100% tree-free paper pulp made from agricultural waste.

Zafree makes pulp, paper, and paper products 100% free from trees by using agricultural waste as an input instead of wood and operates in two African countries – Ethiopia and Zambia – following a Pan-African Business model aiming to duplicate Zafree in different African countries.

Her company deals directly with over 8,000 smallholder farmers, with customers across the continent.

In Ghana, Danso Kwabena is doing the unusual and amplifying the limitless value of the continent’s natural resources – thanks to the lifeline from the Tony Elumelu Foundation.

Kwabena is the Chief Executive Officer at  Booomers International, a subsidiary social enterprise of The Yonso Project.

The 2015 beneficiary of the Tony Elumelu Foundation produces and markets bamboo bicycles and accessories to both the Ghanaian and international markets.

“The company manufactures different types of bamboo bicycles and their accessories – such as bicycle stands and baskets – to help improve transportation, youth employment, and mitigate climate change issues”.

Cape Verdean entrepreneur Erico Pinheiro Fortes and his partner founded PrimeBotics to develop versatile drones that deliver customised technological solutions to farmers, governments & non-governmental institutions related to agriculture in Africa and around the world.⁣

In 2017, he became a Tony Elumelu Foundation beneficial and this proved pivotal for the company as shown in its resourcefulness during the trying period of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Erico and his partner are refocused PrimeBotics with new solutions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in Cape Verde. They used drones to disinfect streets, deliver medical & non-medical supplies, and produce 3D-printed face shields for hospitals. ⁣

PrimeBotics’s production capacity of 20-30 face shields a day was such that they sought collaborations to achieve wider impact in Cape Verde. The company has not looked back since then.

Having completed his graduate studies in Technology, Akapko-Lado Gbagbode found that there was a lack of processing machinery in African countries, and often the purchase of these machines from outside was expensive and required costly external expertise in the event of breakdowns.

After his selection as one of the beneficiaries of the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s Entrepreneurship Programme in 2018, he received several training sessions that focused on diverse business management schemes. The technical and financial support enabled him to turn his ideas into reality, embarking on research towards the manufacturing of Agro-food.  Since then, he has been able to meet the needs of his communities, while preserving the economy and creating jobs.

In July 2020, Madagascar born Stannie Avotriniaina launched a little factory named Mahatsara, with the aim of producing dried fruits and vegetables, but have more products like arranged rhum with dried fruits.

Through the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, Stannie has been able to sharpen her entrepreneurial skills to the benefit of herself and her community. The knowledge received during the training has significantly contributed to the sustainable development of her community, and she continues in her quest to create more jobs for rural women.

Since the programme, Stannie has empowered young entrepreneurs around her to contribute effectively and create positive impacts in among their communities. Her ambition is to have the biggest dried fruit processing factory in Africa, giving access to nutrients to everyone who needs it, especially in the southern part of Madagascar and across Africa.

A 2019 beneficiary of the Tony Elumelu Foundation entrepreneurial programme, Dare Odumade is the co-founder of Chekkit is a Nigerian-based startup that uses blockchain technology to help users verify the authenticity of products before consuming them.

Since launching, Dare and his team have impacted/protected over 80,000 lives. This is measured by the number of consumer product authentications they have registered.

Flavien Kouatcha is a young engineer who is the head of Save Our Agriculture, a company specializing in aquaponics, a system that allows the cultivation of plants and the breeding of fish in the same device. Using fish droppings he is able to create a natural fertilizer for plant growth.

Through the Save Our Agriculture system they are able to create organic gardens with produce such as tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, okra, but also catfish.

Flavien Kouatcha markets its aquaponics units to individuals and professionals in urban areas. The advantage of his solution is that it makes it possible to obtain larger productions than in traditional agriculture, using fewer resources. For example, his urban aquaponics units help smallholder farmers grow 2 to 3 times more volumes of organic food by using only 10% of the water used by traditional agriculture on the same space. Since completing the TEF Programme, Flavien Kouatcha has achieved a turnover of over $120,000 and employed 18 people directly and 42 indirectly.

Kouatcha is a 2018 beneficiary of the Tony Elumelu Foundation.

From Botswana, Geofrey Olekile is a 2019 TEF beneficiary who provides animation and television content to be sold to the local, regional and international content distributors.

He Started Curio Media Commons Animation to fill the gap in the industry with cartoons made with an African flair.

A 2017 TEF beneficiary, Juliet Namujju is the CEO of Kimuli Fashionability, a Ugandan fashion label on a mission to create a better world with recyclable fashion.

Her journey started with the loss of both her parents at an early stage of her life. While growing up, her grandmother – a tailor – taught her how to sew from waste. With the funds from sewing, she was able to fund her high school education and take a short course in Fashion and Design.

Namujju’s business, Kimuli Fashionability which is founded to create an equal opportunity for people with disabilities and for environmental conservation through recycling has been featured on CNN’s African Voices Changemakers. Currently, Juliet Namujju is selling her fashion in Uganda, Germany and Poland. In the future, she also wants to open up markets in Austria or even the United States.

Melissa Bime is the founder of Infiuss — an online blood bank Bime started in December 2017. In the year since its launch, Infiuss’ motorbikes have delivered more than 2,300 bags of blood to patients at 23 hospitals in Yaoundé and Douala. Before Infiuss, access to blood was a dilemma for both physicians and patients in Cameroon. But now with her innovative model, Melissa been able to cut the average time it takes for a patient to receive a transfusion from about a week, to one hour.

With a staff of 13 and revenue of over $26,000, she has been able to open up a clinic and create an online bilingual app for her clients.

She is a 2018 beneficiary of the Tony Elumelu Foundation funding, mentoring, and capacity-building support.