TotalEnergies To Train 100 Young African Entrepreneurs

TotalEnergies Nigeria would be training and supporting100 young Africa entrepreneurs at its 2024 edition of its Startuppers challenge.

Launched in 2016, the Startupers of the Year Challenge by TotalEnergies is a socio-economic development initiative, which runs in 32 Africa countries where TotalEnergies operates. It seeks to identify, reward and provide support to the best business creation and business development projects in these countries. The programme is open to Nigerians between the age brackets of 18 and 35 years.

The 2024 Startuppers challenge was launched virtually yesterday. The company revealed that the 2024 edition of the challenge will be used to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the multinational.

It said “the company is looking to empower 100 businesses across 32 African countries with N8 million cash prize, personalised coaching and media representation.

“The aim of this fourth edition is to support and encourage young African entrepreneurs to innovate and bring their projects to reality in their country of application.”

Presenting the mode that this year’s competition will take, the general manager, Total Country Service, TotalEnergies, Adesua Adewole, said “registration for the challenge would open on May 13th and close on June 18th, 2024. 100 startups would be selected at first before 15 finalists would be selected. These shortlisted businesses would pitch to a jury made of experts who will select winners across three categories.

“In December, we will have 100 businesses to celebrate in Africa. In the past edition, we had only six winners who were invited to Paris but this year, we will have 100 winners who will be going to selected locations where they will be celebrated.”

Adewole added that Africa was special to TotalEnergies hence the focus, saying “Africa is special to us. When you look at Africa, our youths make up 60 per cent, they are the ones who will develop the continent, so we streamlined this to help them develop their businesses or ideas, scale up and become the business leaders of tomorrow.”

The country communications manager, TotalEnergies in Nigeria, Dr. Charles Ebereonwu stated that “apart from celebrating 100 years, we have introduced new dimensions like empowerment of women and equality. All entries will be subjected to whether they take into consideration these dimensions.”

One of the past winners, Nonso Opurum of SOSO Care, a low cost insuretech aims to use recyclable garbage as a financial resource, said, “this Programme has been really transformative for our business. It provided not only theoretical knowledge but also practical know-how. It is a great opportunity to learn, unwind and get capital for business.”