What the World Can Learn from Africa’s Relentless Entrepreneurial Spirit
It is often said that adversity breeds innovation; nowhere is this truer than in Africa.
Across the continent, young people refuse to wait for perfect conditions. Instead, they build, create, and scale companies in environments that would stall many founders elsewhere.
Africa has the world’s youngest population: by 2030, 42 per cent of global youth will be African. This demographic surge is both a challenge and a vast opportunity. Despite limited access to finance, intermittent electricity, political volatility, and inconsistent regulations, African entrepreneurs consistently defy the odds. They transform scarcity into ingenuity, audacity into routine, and local relevance into global insight.
A Living Laboratory of Innovation Under Pressure
From solar-powered cold-storage facilities in rural Tanzania to Lagos-based fintech platforms banking the unbanked, African founders prove daily that constraints can be a catalyst for world-class solutions. Their ventures offer universal lessons in adaptability, lean execution, and customer-centric design, lessons business leaders everywhere now need.
The Tony Elumelu Foundation: Proof of What is Possible
In 2010, our founder, Tony O. Elumelu, CFR, launched the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) to catalyse Africa’s economic transformation through entrepreneurship. Five years later, he committed US $100 million of his family capital to identify, nurture, and seed 10,000 African entrepreneurs over ten years.
Eleven years on, TEF has empowered 24,000 entrepreneurs across all 54 African countries, disbursed over US $100 million in seed capital, and helped create more than 1.5 million jobs while generating US $4.2 billion in revenue. Our digital hub, TEFConnect, has provided free training to 2.5 million Africans, and over 4 million households have benefited socio-economically from TEF-supported businesses.
As Tony Elumelu notes, “We are democratising luck. Poverty anywhere is a threat to all of us, everywhere, and with Africapitalism, what is good for business is good for the people.”
Three Entrepreneurs, Three Testaments to Africa’s Ingenuity
- From Bartender to Tech Builder
In a bustling Lagos bar, Adebowale Daniel spent his nights pouring drinks, and his days quietly teaching himself to code. With no funding, no formal training, and no safety net, he built the foundations of what would become Talosmart Technologies. His breakthrough came in 2019, when he was selected for the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme. That seed capital and mentorship did not just fuel a business, it changed a life.
Today, Talosmart is a thriving, multi-brand tech company delivering cutting-edge software solutions to startups and enterprises across Africa, Europe, and North America. From fintech to fashion, Talosmart’s impact is pan-sectoral and global.
“The Tony Elumelu Foundation gave me more than capital, it gave me a path,”
- Adebowale Daniel, Founder, Talosmart Technologies, Nigeria
His story is a masterclass in grit, grit, and digital vision forged in the shadows of hardship.
- Shining a Light on Morocco’s Youth
In Morocco, thousands of teenagers navigate school with no roadmap for life after. Nora Chaynane was determined to change that. Through her venture, Shine Space, she launched a series of high-impact workshops, mentorship programmes, and virtual learning communities targeting 15–18 year olds, bridging the dangerous gap between education and employability.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Nora did not pause, she pivoted. Her team moved their curriculum online, extended support to local health centres, and launched COVID-awareness campaigns to protect vulnerable communities. They hosted 20 workshops, supported 100 students with the in-person mentorship, and benefited over 2,500 participants.
Now, she’s preparing to launch Glisa bla VISA, a new platform focused on helping young people sharpen their conversational language skills to expand global access.
“Thanks to the support we received from the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Shine Space has been able to achieve its mission of empowering youth and creating tech-oriented opportunities, worldwide,”
- Nora Chaynane, Founder, Shine Space
From national awards to regional impact, Nora is mentoring the next generation while building the tools they need to lead.
- Feeding Congo, Building a Movement:
After years in executive HR roles at DHL and Vodacom, Sivi Malukisa made a radical decision: she walked away from corporate life to pursue a dream rooted in Congolese soil. In 2013, she founded MANITECH CONGO, an agro-processing business producing natural peanut butter, sauces, and flours, all from locally sourced ingredients.
Starting small, Sivi reinvested every franc, expanded cautiously, and kept her eyes on impact. Following her empowerment by the Tony Elumelu Foundation in 2019, MANITECH scaled, sparking two new ventures in paint manufacturing and construction. Today, she leads not just companies, but movements: she co-founded MADE IN 243 to promote locally made Congolese products and serves as vice president of DRC’s largest HR association.
“The TEF Entrepreneurship Programme was truly a gift, it changed everything for me. Every week, I applied something new to my business. By the sixth week, when we focused on marketing and branding, I saw real transformation. Just two weeks after that module, my sales started to grow. Today, in DRC, everyone knows MANITECH. I was even nominated as one of the top entrepreneurs in the country, right alongside someone who owns planes!”
— Sivi Malukisa, Founder, MANITECH CONGO
Her legacy is proof that African women are not just building businesses, they are building nations.
Why the World Should Pay Attention
It is high time the world stops seeing African entrepreneurs through the lens of pity or charity. What the world needs now, post-pandemic, amidst inflation, climate shocks, and institutional distrust, is what Africa has long embodied:
- Ingenuity in the face of scarcity
- Audacity amid uncertainty
- Innovation grounded in local relevance
We should not only invest in African entrepreneurs because it is “the right thing to do,” but because they hold the blueprint for the future of enterprise in uncertain times.
There is a global movement towards impact-led, inclusive business models. African founders have been living this reality for decades. The world is talking about sustainability and community capitalism; Africans have been practicing it out of necessity.
The next wave of unicorns and changemakers will not arise solely from Silicon Valley or Shanghai. They will also emerge from Kisumu, Kumasi, Kano, and Kinshasa. It is time the world stopped viewing African founders through a lens of pity and started learning from their relentless entrepreneurial spirit.
Because what works in Africa’s toughest conditions just might be what saves the rest of us in our toughest times.
