Tony Elumelu foundation alumni access seed capital, mentors, training & networking opportunities
MD/CEO of ORÍKÌ
Leaving her job with a Fortune 100 power company was not an easy decision to make but a necessary one to pursue her passion of exploring the Agro-beauty sector. Joycee Awosika is the MD/CEO of ORÍKÌ (a luxury skincare brand that fuses natural ingredients & scientific research to create extraordinary personal care products) and a 2015 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneur recently recognized on the YNaija 100 Most Influential Women.
Contact Details
Website: www.orikigroup.com
email: contact@orikigroup.com
Phone numbers: +234 (0)1291 9492, +2348077719360
CEO, Boomers International
Booomers International is a subsidiary social enterprise of The Yonso Project, which produces and markets bamboo bicycles and accessories to both the Ghanaian and international markets. The company manufactures different types of bamboo bicycles and their accessories – such as bicycle stands and baskets – to help improve transportation, youth employment, and mitigate climate change issues
Contact Details
Website: www.booomers.com
email: info@booomers.com
Kene Rapu, CEO, Kene Rapu
Kene Rapu is an initiative to promote the development of the local (Nigerian) industry, by using locally sourced materials and workmanship, to provide bespoke handcrafted slippers and sandals.
Contact Details
Website: kenerapu.com
email: info@kenerapu.com
Phone number: +2348161575159
Kimberly Addison, Co-Founder, '57 Chocolate
'57 is the pioneer bean to bar chocolate business in Ghana defined by creativity and authenticity. ‘57 Chocolate is short for 1957, the year of Ghana’s independence. This venture uses resources grown within the country to create delicious treats. '57 hones in on Ghana’s Independence Day spirit and challenges the status quo that premium chocolate can only be made in Europe.
Contact Details
Website: www.57chocolategh.com
email: hello@57chocolategh.com
Phone numbers: +233 504 736 539
Phone number: +2348161575159
Co-founder of Grainothèque
Grainothèque, a social innovation laboratory for young rural entrepreneurs and heads the start-up Grainothèque, a social enterprise that works to promote the genetic diversity of African food plants and the microbiological potential of the soil. Founded in October 2016, Grainothèque, supports rural farmers with access to quality farmer seeds, mobile technologies for agriculture for precision input management and improvement. of food production through an intensive integrated system. This support helps strengthen food sovereignty based on biodiversity and develops solutions to preserve varietal seeds of local food plants and integrates solutions for the natural fight against plant pests and diseases.
Contact Details
CEO of Greenpact
Greenpact embraces the circular economy--using waste to generate Biogas (clean energy) and organic Fertilizer using waste as a resource to strengthen local communities socio-economically. Through a human waste bioreactor toilet that’s able to separate both solid and liquid waste to harness Biogas and fertilizer Leroy and his team offer both a service (monthly maintenance) and a product (our Bioreactor systems) to consumers in Kenya by using an approach in solving economies of scale for institutions using our systems.
Contact Details
Website: greenpact.co.ke
email: info@greenpact.co.ke
CEO of Britts Foods
Britts Foods a start-up focused on delivering the best of sandwiches and smoothies to customers.
Contact Details
email: info@brittsfoods.com
Vital Sounouvou, CEO Exportunity
Exportunity is an online platform that promotes export opportunities for Africans by connecting producers with traders. It allows a farmer in Benin to sell his produce to a buyer in South Africa – or the United States – through a cell phone
Contact Details
Website: www.exportunity.net
Email: trade@exportunity.net
Frank, CEO, Gravity Rwanda
Gravity Rwanda is a marketing and branding company providing and visual designs: website design, Logos and Design consulting services: marketing campaigns, delivering eye catching brand identity and creative visual design that attracts viewers to businesses.
Contact Details
Website: www.gravityrwanda.com
Phone number: +250788275646
Email: gravityrwanda6@gmail.com
CEO of Crawford Swimming
Crawford Swim World Ltd started as a swim lesson company, but has expanded to include Aquatic Programming for Companies and Families.
Crawford Swim World prides itself on being reliable and affordable—providing the best possible choice for companies and families.
Contact Details
Website: www.csw.com.ng
Phone number: 08090969849 and 08091111987
CEO of Aerial industries
Ndubuisi Eze, “The Drone Guy” as he is popularly called, is one of the TEF beneficiaries.
He applied to the Foundation’s Programme with an idea to unlock the potential of smart farming. He had plans to build drones with dual capability - to help farmers with crop dusting and provide information about the farm through multispectral cameras and sensors.
With only 40% of available arable land being cultivated in Nigeria, he knew that the potential for smart farming techniques was huge. “Africa is known for its intensive farming and land degradation worsens every year. Tractors are still needed for clearing the soil and for harvesting at the end, but everything in between could be done with drones,” he said.
With the seed capital he received from the Tony Elumelu Foundation, he launched Aerial Industries, a company devoted to building and deploying multi-purpose industrial-size drones as agriculture aerial tractors for intensifying mechanization on farm fields.
By 2018, he and his team had made commitments to helping 56 rural farm communities with their innovation from the south to the northern Sahel parts of Nigeria with over 3,000 farm cooperative preliminary agreements and MOUs.
Recently, his tech-innovation caught the attention of the Government of Singapore and was bought by the country. The innovation enables users to capture the crop/ soil data that allows agronomists to evaluate the crops’ health and soil nutrient values
Agboneni, CEO, Neni's Auto Care
Neni’s Auto Care is a full-service automobile repair and maintenance company. Agboneni, the Founder, set out to create jobs for the unemployed youths in her community.
The business recently partnered with Cancer Foundation and an old people’s home in her community to generate funds for their upkeep and wellbeing, as well as provide free/ heavily discounted maintenance services to them.
She recently launched a Safety campaign targeted at automobile garages prone to accidents, as a result of not eliminating workshop hazards. By offering 99% quality service and using high tech technological equipment and machines to carry out automotive services in a faster and better way, Nenis Auto Care has successfully reduced accidents caused by poorly maintained vehicles in her community.
She is one of the beneficiaries of the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme.
Joel Cherop, CEO Ataari River Integrated Irrigation Initiative
Joel Cherop is a Ugandan and beneficiary of the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme. His agri-business, Ataari River Integrated Irrigation Initiative (ARIII), a horticulture and rice production venture identifies, trains and seeds young people to begin their own agri-business ventures in a model dubbed “Learn as you earn”.
Since receiving seed capital from the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme, ARIII has grown from strength to strength and has been at the forefront of transforming agriculture from peasant-led to commercial. As such, they have championed efforts like organising irrigation masterclasses to help mitigate the effects of climate change. ARII also organises Open Field days to link farmers to the latest technologies in Agriculture.
ARII hosted His Excellency, the President of Uganda, H.E Yoweri Museveni, to commission an irrigation project and tackle the effects of climate change - currently a threat to agriculture in Uganda.
Maureen Amakabane, CEO, Usafi Sanitation
Usafi Sanitation has been in existence for 10 years operating in the sanitation industry. The business is driven by bringing elegantly designed, affordable and innovative sanitation solutions that are ideal for people who have no access to sewer systems.
Maureen and her team work with schools and institution, resorts/lodges, outdoor event organizers, construction sites, people with remote homes or offices, camping sites and NGOs disaster sanitation management. Their range of sanitation include biological waste digester, commercial waterless toilet solutions, domestic waterless toilet solutions, budget waterless toilet solutions, portable toilets, and hand wash stations.
With the seed funding, training, mentorship and networking opportunities she received from the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Maureen has successfully scaled her business and increased the number of people she employs.
Edmond Nonie, CEO, Track Your Build
Track Your Build is the leading service in Sierra Leone for land and construction surveying using drones. They have become experts in topographical mapping for crisis and response.
Edmond’s father built a house in Sierra Leone whilst teaching as a lecturer abroad and during this process, he lost thousands of dollars to unscrupulous contractors. This gave birth to the idea of developing a service that made that story a thing of the past.
Track Your Build was launched with the aim of providing a reliable, transparent and cost saving service to monitor construction on behalf of clients living overseas. After realizing that drones have become a superior tool for land surveying where GPS points and various land measurements could be taken with more accuracy, they began using drones as tools to improve the pictorial updates of building progress.
On the 14th of August, 2017, Sierra Leone was ravaged by a series of landslides with the most terrible occurring at the Mount Sugarloaf mountain complex. The UN country team called the Track Your Build team to provide mapping support for the response efforts. Over a period of 3 weeks they mapped 9 sites and provided risk assessment images and videos for an additional 5 sites. Their work was instrumental to reducing the damage of the landslides by providing the ground-truth data needed to back up the Satellite maps generated by the UN.
Currently, Track Your Build is operational in Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
Adereni Abiodun, Founder, Help Mum
Adereni Abiodun is the Founder of HelpMum, a social enterprise using the power of mobile technology and low-cost innovation to tackle maternal and infant mortality in Africa by creating a community of pregnant women and nursing mothers where they can learn, connect and also access products and services relevant to their needs.
In 2018, HelpMum was selected as one of the 12 finalists in the 2018 Google Impact Challenge to receive USD 125,000. Additionally, they doubled their funding from 125,000 to 250,000 dollars from garnering the most votes as the most popular choice by the audience.
Abiodun is one of the TEF beneficiaries who has used the opportunities afforded by the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme for business growth.
Mohamed DHAOUAFI, Founder/CEO, CURE Tunisia
From and inquisitive young man to an adult driven by a vision to "Empower people with disabilities to be the super heroes who are change agents and who inspire their communities”, Mohammed founded CURE, a bionic company that works on ensuring that amputees can function in a world that is built for humans with four limbs.
CURE's purpose is to ensure that members of our society living with disabilities are able to live their lives to the fullest despite this physical challenge. CURE intends to achieve this objective through its two programmes: the development of personalised, 3D printed bionic hands and the provision of disruptive physical rehabilitation solutions for these amputees who mostly live in rural areas and have limited resources using virtual reality.
Contact details for interested partners
+216 55 968 767
curetunisia@gmail.com
Mavis Nduchwa, CEO, Chabana Farms
From an undergraduate study in real estate and hospitality to a career as a TV presenter, Botswana’s Mavis Nduchwa, has worn several hats in her career. In 2011, she quit her job in the hospitality industry and teamed up with her husband Brighton Chabana to found Chabana Farms, a successful agribusiness enterprise focused on the integrated farming of cattle, poultry, piggery, donkeys, vegetables, and horticulture.
The idea for Chabana Farms started when Mavis noticed the extreme problems her community was facing – lack of jobs for women and the youth as well as frequent food shortages. The vision of Chabana is to not only provide food for the nation of Botswana, but to empower individuals in her community.
Six years later, Chabana Farms now occupies 247 acres, generates an average of $1.5 million in profit and employs 20 workers to run its operations. She has also recently been awarded a $2 million contract to supply Jugo beans to the local market by the government of Botswana.
Olusola Owonikoko, CEO, Project Enable
Project Enable is a community development initiative that was founded in 2014 to advocate for the rights and empowerment of persons with disabilities in Nigeria. This initiative stemmed from the Founder’s belief that everyone deserves a good life and that no one should be discriminated against on the account of their disability.
The team at Project Enable work to empower persons with disabilities, sensitise the community on the need to reduce discrimination and stigmatisation, and advocate for the disability rights on all levels. Their vision is to create a continent that is socially inclusive for the disabled to prosper, where every child, woman, man and young person with disabilities to also live a fulfilled life while contributing to our shared prosperity as a community.
Project Enable was also selected at one of 12 finalists in the 2018 Google Impact Challenge. They are one of the beneficiaries of the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme.
Ige Komolafe Atiba Founder Laughkord
Ige Komolafe Atiba is the Co-Founder/CEO of Laughkord Consult.
Laughkord Consult and Resources Limited was founded in 2014 with a mission to create science-backed water derivative for a broad range of domestic and industrial uses in Nigeria and other parts of Africa.
Laughkord provides uniquely treated and packaged water that helps reduce associated water infections using its own proprietary technology that through bio infusion techniques maintains the physical and chemical properties of water with enhanced benefits of medical importance.
Ige was inspired to do this because of a teenage experience where an epidemic outbreak in his village resulting from water infection claimed the lives of his parents and several other people.
Since starting his business, he has reached 16 out of the 36 states in Nigeria, distributing over 400,000 bottles and created over 45 jobs.
Contact details for interested customers.
The Green Place,
18b Ogundana Street, off Allen Avenue Ikeja, Lagos-Nigeria.
+2347036493339
THE TEF ALUMNI
Participants in one of the Foundation’s professional training and entrepreneurship programmes are part of our extraordinary pan-African network of over 3,000 young African leaders. Our alumni have distinguished themselves in their chosen careers and are now providing innovative solutions across Africa.
Participants in one of the Foundation’s professional training and entrepreneurship programmes are part of our extraordinary pan-African network of over 3,000 young African leaders. Our alumni have distinguished themselves in their chosen careers and are now providing innovative solutions across Africa.
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