TEF alumni
Our beneficiaries lead trailblazing businesses in their various communities, creating jobs and exporting local African produce to a global market.
Maher Oudira
Maher Oudira is the CEO of Green ALAFCO; a recycling company that recycles and exports aluminium cans to international buyers. Currently, his company has been able to rid the streets of Tunisia of over 1,000 tons of cans with the hope of reaching 4,000 tons in the next few years. His goal is to make Tunisia the African hub for recycling.
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Maher Oudira
Green ALAFCO
Maher Oudira is the CEO of Green ALAFCO; a recycling...
Marea Aaron
Marea Aaron started a decor business, LMA Events, with her sister Lebogang Aaron.
Marea was sponsored by the AFDB in 2019.
Marea Aaron
LMA Events
Marea Aaron started a decor business, LMA Events, with her...
Mark Danbaba Jacob
Mark Danbaba Jacob
M.J Danbaba Global Links Limited
Mark Danbaba Jacob is an entrepreneur in printing and embroidery...
Mavis Nduchwa
Mavis is the founder of 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 was started when Mavis noticed the extreme problems her community was facing –lack of jobs for women and youth and 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.
Chabana Farms currently 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.
Read more about Mavis Nduchwa
Mavis Nduchwa
Chabana Farms
Mavis is the founder of found Chabana Farms, a successful...
Melissa Bime
Melissa Bime is the founder of Infiuss — an online blood bank Bime started in December 2017. In the year since its launch, Infiuss’ motorbikes have delivered more than 2,300 bags of blood to patients at 23 hospitals in Yaoundé and Douala. Before Infiuss, access to blood was a dilemma for both physicians and patients in Cameroon. But now with her innovative model, Melissa been able to cut the average time it takes for a patient to receive a transfusion from about a week, to one hour.
With a staff of 13 and revenue of over $26,000, she has been able to open up a clinic and create an online bilingual app for her clients.
Melissa Bime
Infiuss
Melissa Bime is the founder of Infiuss — an online...
Michel Nkuindja
Growing up Michel Nkuindija was lulled by the tales and legends of Africa and this made his imagination go wild with thoughts hovering around imaginative universes inspired by these tales. Only and as he grew older, he realized that these stories told to us by grandparents were not available in many books, comics and even less in animated version for our children and future generations.
This he says led him to set a challenge of developing a project that would transmit these beautiful stories, tales and legends through media such as animated films and video games.
In 2015, Michel was selected on the TEF programme, and this he says has marked significant progress for his company, Noohkema Game Studios – a creative company based in Yaounde, Cameroon.
Nookhena develops video games for PC and Mobiles with an ambition to break down how video games and interactive media can be the best way to change global perceptions of Africa while preserving our cultural identity for the next generations.
Read More Stories about Michel Nkuindja
Michel Nkuindija: Lessons from my Entrepreneurial Journey
Michel Nkuindja
Noohkema Game Studios
Growing up Michel Nkuindija was lulled by the tales and...
Mohamed Dhaouafi
Mohamed Dhaouafi always inquisitive and curious, always wanting to know “Why” and “How” everything is the way it is or done the way it’s done. It is easy to liken his curiosity to that old saying about the curiosity of a cat but in his case, curiosity doesn’t kill the cat, it only makes him smarter.
His journey into entrepreneurship started when he took part in the Tunisia Entrepreneurship IHEC _ ENISO Challenge that required him and his teammates to solve problems with innovative ideas that can be turned into businesses. It was during this challenge he Founded CURE – a bionic company that works on ensuring that amputees can function in a world that is built for humans with four limbs.
During his encounter with the Tony Elumelu Foundation, he learnt more about the industry his business operates in, the process of developing a business plan and how to secure additional funding to develop the project further.
Today, Mohammed has raised an additional $ 5000 funding from the UNDP funded YAS! Open Innovation Challenge, participated in over 60 national and international programmes and became an Obama Africa leader in 2019.
Read more about Mohammed Dhaouafi
Mohamed Dhaouafi – Tunisian Entrepreneur
Highlights from the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) Entrepreneurship Forum 2018
The TEF Entrepreneurship Forum 2018: 7 Most Memorable Moments
Mohamed Dhaouafi
CURE
Mohamed Dhaouafi always inquisitive and curious, always wanting to know...
Mohammed Akamara
In September 2018, Mohammed Akamara, CEO of Light Salone and his team set out to design and fabricate small-scale renewable hybrid energy plants that combine solar and wind. Their product, Sowind Technology, includes a plastic lantern, small scale hydro generator, solar book, and charging telecentres, and is built using recycled materials to provide the cheapest and most sustainable electricity for rural communities.
During the covid-19 pandemic, Mohammed noticed the dilemma of touching the tap while washing hands. Through his business, Light Salone Innovation, he built the Lili Tap (using locally available and recyclable materials) to help Africans in Sierra-Leone with a safer and unique handwashing system for small communities.
Mohammed Akamara
Light Salone
In September 2018, Mohammed Akamara, CEO of Light Salone and...
Momarr Taal
Momarr Mass Taal is the founder and managing director of Tropingo Foods, which is currently the largest processor and exporter of processed foods in the Gambia.
Tropingo was founded in 2014 as a food processing company and they currently process and export dried mangoes and groundnuts from Gambia to different places around the world, such as Nigeria, Senegal, the Netherlands, and China. The company has over 140 employees out of which 120 are women and his company’s yearly turnover is approximated to be $1.6 Million.
Momarr’s entire effort in the processing and export of fruits and nuts is geared towards ensuring that crop loss becomes a thing of the past as far as the continent of Africa is concerned.
Momarr Taal
Tropingo Foods
Momarr Mass Taal is the founder and managing director of...
Msindazwe Ndhlovu
Botswanan entrepreneur Msindazwe Ndhlovu founded The Noble Savage, a company that recycles waste plastic and waste glass to manufacture alternative eco-friendly building materials which are lighter, stronger, durable, and affordable.
The company makes roofing tiles, and other material by utilising mixed post-consumer waste plastic and blending it with sand to create a polymer resin bonded product that is eco-friendly, stronger and cheaper compared to other products. The collected waste includes beer bottles and all sorts of glass blended with concrete resin and wood to create alternatives to granite, marble and Ceaser stone.
Msindazwe Ndhlovu says: “For centuries roofing has been made from materials that were extracted from the earth cement, clay steel or grass. But we have improved and used waste plastic to generate a far superior product that is lighter, stronger, and affordable up to 30% cheaper.”
Msindazwe Ndhlovu
The Noble Savage
Botswanan entrepreneur Msindazwe Ndhlovu founded The Noble Savage, a company that...
Nana Amoako-Anin
Nana Amoako-Anin is the Founder of Bliss Yoga Accra, one of the few full-service yoga studios credited with popularising yoga in Ghana.
Nana Amoako-Anin
Bliss Yoga
Nana Amoako-Anin is the Founder of Bliss Yoga Accra, one...
Nathan Damtew
Nathan Damtew is the founder of the technology and gaming company BeBlocky. The companies first product is a programming learning platform for kids. It uses animated programming lessons as a traditional app and through augmented reality to teach children the basics of computer programming using a modified curriculum based off of lessons from CODE.org. BeBlocky officially launched in 2018 and already has 6,00 users on its app.
Nathan Damtew
Beblocky
Nathan Damtew is the founder of the technology and gaming...
Ndubuisi Eze
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. He was also selected to present his company and its innovations at the Expo Dubai 2020.
Ndubuisi Eze
AMIntegrated Aerial Industries
Ndubuisi Eze, “The Drone Guy” as he is popularly called,...
Nganga Felix
Nganga Felix is a computer engineer skilled at developing software for PCs and mobile phones. His business, Ngangalix commercial, is specialized in training centre (ITs courses) and selling ITs accessories software and hardware in one of the communities in Angola Capital (Luanda).
After deeply analysing the worst situation of his community which ranged from poor quality of education and information technology, he started out with purchasing a photocopying machine to provide copy service to my community. Soon, people his community started requesting that he also typed documents for them.
This ignited their interest to learn how to type documents and handle computers. Felix then proceeded to acquire an additional 10 PCs and opened his first training center. In space of 7 months, Felix had enrolled more than 600 students in various courses and hired 4 young people.
So far, his business has trained more than 2,400 students in various IT courses.
Nganga Felix
Ngangalix Comercial
Nganga Felix is a computer engineer skilled at developing software...
Nkem Okocha
With a mission to eradicate poverty through economic empowerment of poor women, Nkem Okocha set up Mamamoni, a social enterprise that is addressing community transformation by empowering women to carry on small businesses. Loan recipients get low-interest loans in return for signing up for a system designed to create impact on financial inclusion and children’s education.
She started Mamamoni at a time where she says she had very limited funds to help these women, but today through her intervention over 4000 low-income women and their families have been impacted and Mamamoni has grown beyond bounds, earning the recognition of the Nigerian presidency and also making it to the YNaija 100 Most Influential Women.
During the COVID-19 crisis, she also partnered with individuals and organisations to direct help where it is in dire need. With this initiative, Nkem Okocha has donated food, relief funds, high quality sanitizers and sensitised over 200 women in Ijegun, Ikotun, Ojo areas of Lagos state, Nigeria.
Nkem Okocha
Mama Moni
With a mission to eradicate poverty through economic empowerment of...
Nneile Nkholise
Nneile Nkholise is a South African tech entrepreneur. In 2015 she founded iMED Tech Group, an innovative startup that uses 3D printing technology to produce breast prosthetic for breast cancer survivors.
In just two hears she has impacted over 150 women with her prosthetics. Since completing TEF Programme in 2016 she has since gone on to launch a product called 3DIMO (3-Dimensional Imaging and Modelling for Operations) an online cloud platform will be an AI-infused product that will help Surgeons be able to create 3D virtual and 3D printed surgical planning models.
Read more about Nneile
From Passion to Impact: Here’s how Nnelie is building Med Tecma Group
Meet Nneile Nkholise, the woman using 3D tech to help breast cancer survivors
Nneile Nkholise
iMED Tech
Nneile Nkholise is a South African tech entrepreneur. In 2015...
Nniele Nkholise
iMed Tech Group (Pty) Ltd is a medical design, engineering and technology company located in Bloemfontein, Free State. Its primary focus is in the field of medical prosthetic design and manufacturing. iMed Tech uses technology which enables for the production of high quality products that meet customer needs at impressive prices.
Nniele Nkholise
iMed Tech Group (Pty) Ltd is a medical design, engineering...
Nonofo Thamage
Nonofo Thamage started Gamer’s Brawl to specifically address the demand from passionate people who just love competitive video gaming and to give players and fans some friendly, well-organised multi-platform, multi-game events to experience everything that the local esports have to offer.
Nonofo Thamage
Gamers Brawl
Nonofo Thamage started Gamer’s Brawl to specifically address the demand...
Nora Chaynane
TEF Entrepreneur Nora Chaynane founded Shine Space, Morroco’s foremost socio-educational initiative to bridge the knowledge gap and guide students in finding the right career path.
Shine space offers opportunities to students to prepare early and acquire technical and interpersonal skills, beyond what the schools provide, to meet the demands of today’s world of work.
Before the pandemic, Shine Space delivered over 10 workshops to offer these unique opportunities to students through offline trainings and online interactions.
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Nora and her team pivoted their operational strategy online. In addition to that, she collaborated with the small health centres and the Health Ministry to raise awareness and fight the negative social impact of Covid-19.
To further drive the vision of her company, Nora is set to launch Glisa bla VISA (A discussion without VISA) – Morocco’s first interactive platform aimed to improve the professional and conversational skills in foreign languages using focused groups (talk rooms), while discussing trending news.
Since the lockdown, Shine Space has hosted 20 workshops, supported 100 students with the in-person mentorship, and benefited over 2,500 participants.
Shine Space previously won the Social Impact Prize in the National Entrepreneurship Competition GPE in Kenitra and the American Student Leaders program.
Nora Chaynane
Shine Space
TEF Entrepreneur Nora Chaynane founded Shine Space, Morroco’s foremost socio-educational...
Norbert Dazogbo
Norbert Dazogbo is an agripreneur and member of Societe Internationale de Negoce et de Realisation (SINERA). He completed his academic training in France in 1972 as an agronomist.
Norbert Dazogbo
Societe Internationale de Negoce et de Realisation (SINERA)
Norbert Dazogbo is an agripreneur and member of Societe Internationale...
Obi Amuzuo
We provide solution to fleet management, human and asset security. Our service solutions include tracking, monitoring and surveillance services as security measures.
Obi Amuzuo
We provide solution to fleet management, human and asset security....
Oduku Funmi Martinson
Funmart’s Blends and Desserts is a bakery and smoothies manufacturing company founded on the platform of solving the Social Development Goals 3 and 10.
SDGs Goal 3 – Good Health and Well-Being
SDGs Goal 5 – Gender Equality
Oduku Funmi Martinson
Funmart's Blends and Desserts
Funmart’s Blends and Desserts is a bakery and smoothies manufacturing...
Okey Esse
Okey Esse is the founder of Powerstove, a clean-energy advocate and focused company that designs, manufactures and distributes smokeless cookstoves that use 70% less biomass to cook food while generating 50 watts of electricity for the user’s household.
The Company also produces Goodlife Pellets, a Premium Refuse-Derived Fuel which costs 60% lower than firewood and 80% cheaper than charcoal and cook food twice longer than any available biomass fuel. Powerstove is the first clean cookstove to be fitted with IoT cloud-based remote system to monitor in real-time a single day of cooking, the amount of CO2 and biomass saved, Black Carbon prevented and total electricity generated.
Okey has gone on to win several awards since completing the TEF Programme including the 2019 TEF Founder’s Den.
Okey Esse
Okey Esse is the founder of Powerstove, a clean-energy advocate...
Olasupo Abideen
Olasupo Abideen journey into entrepreneurship came from the need that he identified in his community. As a student of chemistry and volunteer to SDGs groups, Olasupotook a keen interest in clean, renewable energy, that could be used instead of orthodox fuelling options, and one of them was Liquefied Petroleum Gas.
In 2017, Olasupo took a loan from a friend, conducted intense market research, to start his first OPAB Gas station; a cooking gas company hinged on three things service offerings; convenience, safety, and trust. With the $5000 seed capital and business he received from the Tony Elumelu Foundation in 2018, he expanded OPAB Gas station service deliver.
Like every entrepreneur looking for opportunities to upscale, Olasupo also founded “Know COVID-19 Nigeria”, an online platform established to debunk fake news and provide safety, health and precautionary tips that can help Nigerians stay informed and protected.
Read more about Olasupo Abideen
Nigerian-Based Entrepreneur, Olasupo Abideen Launches Media Initiative to Battle Fake News
Olasupo Abideen
OPAB Gas Station
Olasupo Abideen journey into entrepreneurship came from the need that...
