Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs to Pitch Their Business Ideas to President Muhamadu Buhari
The Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs keep blazing the trail in their different sectors. This time, we have 6 of our entrepreneurs set to pitch their business ideas to the Nigerian President, President Muhamadu Buhari. The Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme is structured that our entrepreneurs are bound to achieve this level of success and even more.
With the 12-week Start-up Enterprise Tool-kit training course, all Tony Elumelu entrepreneurs are given access to the online mentoring and learning portal where they will be assigned a mentor from day one who will guide and support them throughout the 12-week course, and for the duration of this programme cycle! They will have access to a vast array of business resources, articles, videos, case studies and more in our curated Online Resources Library also hosted on this portal mentors set to guide them in their business decisions. Following this window, all Tony Elumelu entrepreneurs from across Africa get the opportunity to converge in Nigeria for the TEF Entrepreneurship Forum where they get to network with other entrepreneurs. After this, they are provided funding for their businesses. All these elements shape and mould the entrepreneurs to achieve more.
We caught up with the 5 entrepreneurs set to meet with the Nigerian president later this year to hear how they feel about this opportunity.
Name- GODWIN BENSON, class of 2016
BUSINESS– Tuteria
Tuteria is an online platform that connects people seeking to learn anything, with those who live around them and can teach them what they want to learn, as well as ensure safety, accountability and quality service delivery.
Impact of the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s 12 week Training
During my first pitch in July, I told the panellists that I am a Tony Elumelu Entrepreneur. I believe this gave me head way. The training has been truly impactful. I learnt a lot during week 10 and 11 on investors. Going forward, I plan to make extensive use of all I learnt during the “investor” week of the training.
Best quote
Whatever your hands find to do, do it well
Name- NKEM OKOCHA, class of 2015
Business– Mamamoni
Mamamoni is a FinTech Social Enterprise that empowers poor rural and urban slum women with free vocational and financial skills and Mobile loans, our web platform www.mamamoni.org enables socially conscious individuals lend poor women money to grow their businesses. Since inception we have empowered almost 4000 women with skills, tools and finance to help them start and grow their businesses, so they can feed and educate their children, thereby reducing poverty.
Impact of the Tony Elumelu Foundation
The bootcamp was an amazing platform to meet and connect with other entrepreneurs from other African countries for possible partnership in the future.
The Tony Elumelu foundation entrepreneurial training was top notch. The most important part of the training was the mentoring session. My mentor’s guidance was so excellent that we innovated our business toolkit for low-income women together. The TOE ways has helped me to embrace hard work more, be disciplined, set milestones for myself, accountable and more innovative
QUOTE
“No woman chooses to be poor, but we can all choose to help poor women by investing in them.”
Name- UCHE ARIOLU, class of 2015
BUSINESS- Foodstantly
Foodstantly is a mobile web marketplace for food and farm produce, that uses technology to solve the problem of food distribution and food discovery in Nigeria. By democratizing access to market, connecting food producers/food sellers directly to consumers and business as well as providing last mile delivery from farmers, food traders and all the players in the food and agriculture supply chain to consumers or business buyers. We unify all the players in the food supply chain on a single platform. Currently we have over 1500 sellers on the platform cut across 12 states in Nigeria. We have a goal to unify and connect over 12 million players in the food and agriculture supply chain to consumers and businesses seamlessly.
Impact of the Tony Elumelu Foundation
The resources, mentorship and training we received has been instrumental in every pitch event I have been to and in other activities. Earlier this year the lessons I learned from the Foundation were applied in a pitch event in London when Bloomberg selected Foodstantly as one of the disruptive and high potential tech start-ups from Africa. We also applied the lessons learnt from the Foundation in Speedup Africa in Ghana.
QUOTE
“Several People will not believe in our dream. Our job is not to force them to, but to focus our energy in building those dreams and making them become reality.”
Name- ODIOR YOLE, class of 2016
Business– GoCV
GoCV uses a proprietary system to split regular 8-6pm jobs between two people. Our solution allows more people to gain employment and frees up more time for most people to pursue other purposes during their time off. Companies are also able to compare and track effectiveness of staff through the reporting tool integrated in the app made available to companies.
Impact of the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s 12 week Training
It has been very insightful. The key thing for me has been the fact that it’s been inclusive, almost every aspect of business is being covered by the training; from finding partners to networking, understanding equity and
most importantly, drawing up an effective business plan. The program forces one to think outside the ordinary and that’s key for me.
One thing is for sure, with this training I have received, I have been able to cover as much as 50% of my goals, we have been able to connect with like-minded people and are currently setting up the business to allow for more investors, and all these is possible because of knowledge gained from the TEF
Best quote
Personal mantra: The possibility keeps me going, not the guarantee
Business mantra: When I was young, I observed that nine out of 10 things I did were failures. So I did 10 times more work — George Bernard Shaw
Name- CHIOMA UKONU, class of 2015
BUSINESS- RecyclePoints
RecyclePoints is Nigeria’s foremost waste recycling and social benefit project geared towards creating awareness on the values of waste recycling in addition to providing for the basic social and economic needs of potential recyclers. It is a waste recycling venture poised to innovatively initiate numerous collation schemes for collecting Plastics, Aluminum Cans, Paper and Glass from several post-consumer sources.
Impact of the Tony Elumelu Foundation
The networking with other bright like minds from all over Africa at the bootcamp was second to none. The Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme boot camp has made me a better entrepreneur. The ideas within Africa can indeed change Africa for the better!
QUOTE
I stand for Sustainable Development , local Content Development and a firm believer of a better Africa; where Africans are integral to the solutions of Africa’s problems.
Name- ABUBAKAR GARBA, Class of 2015
BUSINESS- Automation Affairs
Automation Affairs is company providing innovative solutions for private and public institutions to solve the problem absenteeism of employees. The solution comprises of a radio responsive ID card provided for every employee. This card is automatically read by a device deployed at a specific location in the company.
The device takes record of the employees’ resumption, break and closing time through a software that is linked to the company’s payroll system. Our goal is to eliminate ‘ghost workers’ and increase productivity in places of work.
Impact of the Tony Elumelu Foundation
The Foundation has been a part of my personal and business life. I’ll like to call the Mentoring Learning Platform an advanced online school with such a very robust learning program. Everything I’ve learnt from the program is still very much useful to me and my business. A typical example is the module on problem-centric entrepreneurship.
Additionally the knowledge I learnt from the TOE way helped me a lot; being humble, disciplined and most especially being hardworking. Hard work and honest work never deceives a man.
QUOTE
When you desire something and work hard and honest enough, the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.
