By Our Reporter
The Tony Elumelu Foundation, the leading African-funded and founded philanthropy committed to empowering African entrepreneurs, is now accepting applications for the 2019 cohort of the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme (TEF EP).
The Programme is a 10-year, $100 million commitment to identify, train, mentor and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs. The Programme’s objective is to generate at least 1,000,000 new jobs and create at least $10 billion in new business revenue across Africa.
In 2018 over 2,210 Ugandans entrepreneurs applied for the program, ranking Uganda the third highest after Nigeria and Kenya in submissions. Over 126 Ugandan applicants were successful and received in the USD 5000, seed capital in 2018.
Since inception over 300 Ugandan entrepreneurs have benefited from the program. Over the years, the bank realised the reason most applicants were unsuccessful was because they lacked knowledge on how to write well thought proposals. It is behind this background that the bank last weekend launched an application drive workshop to guide entrepreneurs write winning proposals.
In an interview with Paul Luyima, Head Retail and SME Banking, he stated, “We want to prepare them; polish their proposals and approaches to make their applications more competitive. During the training, we highlight key focus areas for all young entrepreneurs to consider; from operations to managing their first revenue. We also invited successful TEF Fellows; Racheal Rwantale and Kenneth Twesigye to have a talk with the invites to further encourage and inspire them considering they were once seeking seed capital and now they are CEOs of successful capacity building businesses.”
Kenneth Twesigye, Alumni TEF Entrepreneurship Programme and CEO of TechBuzz applauded TEF EP’s commitment to support African entrepreneurs and advised the guests to look for a problem and be the solution. “This concept alone is the starting point up your ladder of success.” He commented.
Twesigye revealed that he was shortlisted in 2016 after which the cohort underwent training and mentorship programmes where they learnt on business and financial planning before the funds were disbursed. “It has since been well over two years and I currently have a government contract to support young IT entrepreneurs.”
Now in its 5th year, the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme has empowered 4,470 entrepreneurs, using a bespoke and robust selection, training and implementation process to create visible and sustainable impact across all 54 African countries. UBA Uganda Commits to host annual workshops to continue giving support to ambitious applicants.