Tech in Africa
United Bank of Africa (UBA) alongside the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) will fund innovative business ideas in rural Kenya. The is in line with the Foundation’s Covid-19 economic recovery plan for African SMEs. Kenyan applicants with “brilliant scalable ideas” are highly encouraged to apply.
In 2021, TEF looks to identify, train and mentor 1000 applicants as part of its programme, and an additional 2400 applicants in collaboration with other international partners. The programme remains open for Kenyan entrepreneurs, whether new start-ups or existing businesses from any sector. This was confirmed by Kehinde Omirinde, UBA Kenya’s chief executive.
He pointed out this year’s intention to pursue an aggressive focus on rural areas given that 70 of the application to TEF in 2019 were from urban areas. The TEF foundation is a $100 million Entrepreneurship Programme run by Tony Elumelu, a Nigerian philanthropist. Launched in 2015, it has an ambitious goal of empowering 10,000 entrepreneurs across Africa’s 54 countries in 10 years.
Enterpreneurs selected will go through 12 weeks of online training on enterprise management, business transformation mentorship at the early stages, and seed capital worth $5,000.
