Now in its third year, the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s entrepreneurship forum is organising the most inclusive gathering of African SMEs in Lagos this week, where over 1,300 African entrepreneurs, business leaders, and policymakers from 54 countries are attending. ISAAC ANYAOGU in this piece analyses what it means for entrepreneurship in Africa.
Those who attended his valedictory ceremony as the managing director of United Bank for Africa remember with fondness a speech Tony Elumelu, now chairman of Heirs Holding, gave on the occasion. Elemelu said he was leaving the bank to try to democratise luck, to debunk the myth that you need to have high-powered connections to be successful in business.
Three years later, the vision is well on its way, changing the story of about 3,000 entrepreneurs in Africa. The idea draws force in the simplicity of its mandate: that the private sector holds the key to unlocking Africa’s economic potential, hence TEF will serve as its catalysing agent.
The guiding principles are derived from an inclusive economic philosophy of Africapitalism, which states that long-term, dynamic African-led private sector investment in key sectors of the continent’s economy will drive economic and social development.
TEF offers entrepreneurs with smart business ideas the privilege of a boot camp in running a business, drawing from the experiences of successful entrepreneurs who provide guidance and mentoring. The icing on the cake is the funding support of $10,000 to build your dream.
In a continent where opportunities masquerade as problems but where support is unevenly spread, TEF represents a breath of fresh air. This is why the applications are pouring in droves – from just 20,000 in 53 African countries in 2015, it has swelled to over 90,000 in 2017 in virtually every country on the continent.
In the 2017 cycle, a total of 93,246 applications were recorded globally on the programme platform, 37,935 of those who submitted complete application were screened by the TEF team, 10,135 applications were evaluated and 1,100 progressed to the final stage out of which 1,000 applicants were selected.
“Since launching the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme – and committing $100 million to empowering 10,000 African entrepreneurs in a decade – we have unleashed our continent’s most potent development force, its entrepreneurs,” said Elumelu.
“In just three years, our first 3,000 entrepreneurs have created tens of thousands of jobs and generated considerable wealth. On October 13 and 14, the global entrepreneurship community will gather in Lagos to build a New Africa, a thriving, self-reliant continent capable of replicating the results of our ground-breaking programme,” he further said.
The euphoria greeting this third series of the two-day Forum which will feature plenary panels, masterclasses, sector-specific networking opportunities and policy-led forums focused on enabling African business growth, by the admission of the organisers, has them worried about not disappointing. And understandably so.
“This is the first year we have opened the forum up to include not just the 1,000 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs from the 2017 cycle of our programme, but the full pan-African entrepreneurship ecosystem. In doing so we are allowing disparate SME communities to come together and expand the possibilities for the intra-Africa partnerships,” said Parminder Vir, chief executive officer of the Foundation.
The logistical nightmare alone of hosting this crowd from Africa along with many more who have indicated interest to attend in other parts of the world is mind-boggling.
“But that’s what stands us out, we do not just talk about problems, we try to solve them. We stand for excellence and look for a way to get things done,” said Bolanle Omisore, head, marketing and communications, Tony Elumelu Foundation, while moderating a press briefing with journalists on October 5 at Heirs Holding office in Lagos.
That culture of excellence indeed has become identifying mark of the Tony Elumelu brand, an unapologetic devotion to excellence, the stubborn refusal to accommodate excuses regardless of how it is conveniently arrayed, a can-do spirit that shows little regard for failure, employing disciplined, intellectual rigour in trying to convert stumbling blocks to stepping stones.
While TEF may not be the only entrepreneurship forum on the African continent, it stands apart from others. As Vir puts it, “We are the largest accelerator programme funded by a single individual on the continent.”
The structure of the programme – captured in its 7 pillars which include a 12-week startup training, online mentoring which provides a credible technology-enabled platform for access to world-class mentors from across Africa and internationally and a rich online resource library which contains a compendium of materials, case studies, videos, tasks, templates and interesting articles – marks the programme as unique.
Other features include meet-ups at country and state levels to ignite the entrepreneurial fire and promote close interaction within the programme; the TEF entrepreneurship forum that brings together key persons in the African and global entrepreneurial ecosystem with an aim to leverage TEF convening powers to promote African entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship and to connect with local and regional decision makers; and the $10,000 seed capital to support early growth, proof-of-concept and/or enhance their business operation and a deep alumni network that comprises all Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs.
The programme provides capacity development for entrepreneurs from ideation to testing which involves research and development, to infancy or market entry, and finally growth. A deep commitment to growing businesses is seen in the fact that 81 percent of the applications received for 2017 were from businesses in the idea to infancy stages.
Majority of the applications have come from Nigeria and a large number have also come from the agricultural, manufacturing, ICT, education, fashion and commercial retail sectors of the economy.
The impact of 10,000 entrepreneurs over the course of 10 years will unleash new businesses, open up new industries and create employment for millions. Already a conservative estimate of the number of jobs created by alumni of TEF is over 180,000, more than what many African governments created last year.
However, TEF is seeking closer partnership with governments rather than in competition with them.
“Our focus for the business is deeper engagement with multilateral agencies and African governments to create a database that will offer policymakers insight and translate these policies for African governments,” said Vir.
TEF is moving to convening with the goal of expanding the entrepreneurial ecosystem because entrepreneurs do not exist in isolation and must function in an environment that is favourable for SMEs so that they can know that it is possible to do business across the 54 African countries.
“We are the largest accelerator programme funded by a single individual and we have the perfect model for training and connecting entrepreneurs across Africa. We have made it very inclusive, old ones and young people alike can participate, they just have to go through the mini MBA-like programme to get their business plan approved,” said Vir in response to questions at the press conference.
Speakers expected at this year’s forum include Wale Ayeni, International Finance Corporation; Stephen Tio Kauma, Afrexim Bank; Andre Hue, AFD; Stephen M. Haykin, USAID Nigeria; Heikke Reugger, European Investment Bank; and Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, United Nations Development Programme.
The organisers say 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 its entrepreneurs, as the catalysts for the social and economic development of the continent.
Chuks Oluigbo
