With a target of empowering 10,000 African entrepreneurs over a period of 10 years, the Tony Elumelu Foundation said it has helped to create over 400,000 jobs across the continent. This is even as its founder, Tony Elumelu called on African corporations and entrepreneurs invest in businesses that would spur growth and employment in the continent.
Speaking at the virtual Centre for Strategic Philanthropy by the University of Cambridge in Conversation with Tony Elumelu yesterday, Elumelu noted that Nigeria and the African continent’s population is vastly youthful and there is an urgent call to invest in key sectors and infrastructure that would boost growth in the continent.
Elumelu whilst noting that TEF is collaborating with international organisations to expand its reach of impact across the continent, said “my call to other African entrepreneurs, whilst we do business to make profits if there are opportunities to touch lives and help the young ones by investing in sectors that help improve our operating environments. In Transcorp, we generate electricity that aids entrepreneurs power their businesses.
“We need to create a more prosperous society and create jobs. The world is now realising that what happens in country A can affect country B and C and this we can also see in the youth immigration from the continent.”
He added that the foundation launched in 2015 with a seed of $100 million to empower 10,000 African entrepreneurs over the next 10 years has now empowered over 18,000 young entrepreneurs across 54 countries in Africa by training, mentoring and funding them with start-up capital of $5,000 each.
“The Tony Elumelu Foundation was founded and because we come from a business background, we understand the impact of measurement and we know that what gets measured gets done so we decided to create targets of supporting 10,000 African entrepreneurs over a period of 10 years. We want to be able to grow business revenues for the continent by $10 billion, we want to create at least one million jobs in the continent in 10 years.
“Today, we are to have trained about 1.5 million young Africans through our digital training platform. We are also technologically empowered 18,000 young Africans each with a non-refundable seed capital beyond the 10,000 we set to achieve in 10 years.
“Every year, Tony Elumelu Foundation, true to our commitment support 1000 young African women and men but we have grown in scale and partnered with others to now scale on the impact we have created. We have created over 400,000 jobs so far and still counting.”
On TEF, he added that It is sector agnostic and accepts applicants from fashion, education, agriculture, and technology so long as its ideas that can help transform Africa.
