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In Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Akhenaton Kayembe, founder of Deliver Express Logistics (DEL), is building a business around a different approach: bringing essential facility management services together under one provider.

Drawing on his experience in procurement and mining logistics, Kayembe saw an opportunity to help organisations coordinate operational services through a more integrated model. DEL now offers a range of facility management and related services designed to help clients manage their facilities and day-to-day requirements more efficiently.

An operational challenge becomes a business opportunity

The idea for DEL emerged in 2015 during a breakfast conversation in South Africa. A discussion about operational challenges prompted Kayembe to consider how businesses could manage facility services more effectively.

His experience in procurement and logistics within the mining industry gave him insight into the demands of complex operations. Organisations often needed different providers for cleaning, electrical work, maintenance and other services. Coordinating these providers could make service delivery more difficult to manage.

Kayembe saw an opportunity to bring these needs together. DEL was established in Lubumbashi with the aim of providing businesses with a single point of coordination for facility management and logistics services.

The business proposition was straightforward: instead of managing several service providers independently, clients could engage one company to coordinate a broader range of operational requirements.

How Deliver Express Logistics brings services together

DEL provides both hard and soft facility management services. Its offering includes cleaning, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) maintenance, electrical systems maintenance, fire safety services and merchandising support.

The company’s model uses a single Service Level Agreement (SLA) to bring agreed services under one framework. This can give clients a clearer basis for coordinating work, defining responsibilities and managing service delivery.

For organisations operating in demanding industrial and commercial environments, effective coordination matters. Maintenance issues, unreliable service delivery and unclear contractor responsibilities can disrupt routine operations. An integrated provider can help reduce the administrative burden of managing separate contractors, although the results depend on the scope and quality of the services delivered.

For DEL, the opportunity lies in more than offering a list of services. It is in coordinating those services around a client’s operational needs and building the systems and technical capacity required to deliver consistently.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation and the next stage of growth

Before participating in the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, DEL reportedly generated approximately US$5,000 in annual revenue and employed five people. Its service offering was also more limited.

In 2022, Kayembe joined the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, receiving US$5,000 in seed capital alongside business training, mentorship and access to the Foundation’s pan-African entrepreneurial network.

The programme helped him strengthen his business planning and develop a clearer approach to growth. The seed capital supported the acquisition of essential equipment, the formalisation of service agreements and workforce expansion.

These steps addressed practical requirements for a service business seeking to broaden its offering: the equipment to deliver work, agreements that define expectations and a workforce capable of supporting client needs.

DEL’s reported annual revenue subsequently increased from approximately US$5,000 to US$100,000, while its workforce grew from five to ten employees.

Delivering for clients in the mining sector

DEL’s work for Services Machinery Trucks RDC Sarl (SMT RDC Sarl) provides a practical example of its project delivery.

In 2025, the company completed an on-site construction container office for SMT RDC Sarl in less than three weeks. It also managed the company’s exhibition stands at the Katanga DRC Mining event.

The projects demonstrate DEL’s involvement in assignments that require coordination, timely execution and attention to client requirements. They also offer a more concrete view of the company’s work than a general description of its service offering.

For a growing facility management business, assignments of this kind can help demonstrate its capabilities to prospective clients. Continued growth, however, will depend on the company’s ability to deliver reliably, maintain client relationships and show that it can meet the requirements of larger or more complex contracts.

Building a facility management business for the long term

Kayembe’s ambition is to develop Deliver Express Logistics into one of Central Africa’s leading integrated facility management companies. The business plans to strengthen its services, expand strategic relationships and serve industries that depend on reliable operational support.

Achieving that ambition will require DEL to build on its reported revenue and workforce growth while maintaining consistent service standards. Clear service agreements, capable staff, appropriate equipment and evidence of client satisfaction will remain important as the business pursues new opportunities.

Kayembe’s journey illustrates how experience in an established industry can help identify a practical business need. Through DEL, he is seeking to make facility management easier for clients to coordinate by bringing multiple services under one operating model.

The next measure of the company’s progress will be its ability to sustain growth, retain clients and demonstrate the value of integrated service delivery across the organisations it serves.

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A founding Director of Heirs Holdings, the family-owned investment company, investing in strategic sectors of the African economy, including energy, power, banking, insurance and financial services, technology, real estate and hospitality and healthcare, and committed to improving lives and transforming Africa, Dr Elumelu also chairs several Heirs Holdings group boards, including:

• Avon Healthcare Limited (Avon HMO), Nigeria’s leading health insurance provider, and Avon Medical Practice, a growing network of full-service clinics and medical centres, driven by her commitment to improving access to quality healthcare in Nigeria.

• Heirs Insurance Brokers, the brokerage arm of Heirs Insurance Group. Through an extensive network of insurance partners, Heirs Insurance Brokers delivers tailored solutions that help clients mitigate risks, protect assets, and preserve wealth.

• Transcorp Hotels Plc, Nigeria’s leading hospitality company, owner of the iconic Transcorp Hilton Hotel Abuja, where she drives its commitment to redefining hospitality across the continent. Transcorp Hotels is a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation Plc, Nigeria’s largest quoted conglomerate with strategic investments in the power, hospitality, and energy sectors.

As Co-Founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation, committed to empowering entrepreneurs across Africa, Dr Elumelu advocates extensively for gender inclusion and youth entrepreneurship, across the continent. The Foundation has empowered over 27,000 young African men and women across the 54 African countries with non-refundable grants, mentorship, and business training.

In 2023, in recognition of Dr Elumelu’s healthcare leadership, entrepreneurship development, and philanthropy, she was conferred the ‘Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic’. In 2026, she was recognised as a TIME100 Philanthropy honouree, named among the world’s most influential philanthropists for her transformative impact across Africa through the Foundation.

In 2018, Dr. Elumelu was appointed as the Private Sector Champion for Immunisation in Africa by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. In this role, she harnesses her knowledge, corporate networks, and expertise from the healthcare and business sectors to champion vaccination and immunisation in Africa.

She also sits on a number of regional and global boards including the Yale Institute for Global Health, the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (EJS) Presidential Centre for Women and Development, the African Union’s African High-Level Ministerial Committee on Global Health Architecture (AHLMC).

Dr. Elumelu holds a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree from the University of Benin, with advanced executive and professional certifications from the International Institute for Management Development, Switzerland, Harvard Business School, and the Indian School of Business. Her career as a medical doctor includes experience with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, in Nigeria, and Grantham and District Hospital, Grantham, in the UK.

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Mr. Elumelu pursues a single ambition — to improve lives and transform Africa — by committing long-term capital to the sectors that shape the continent’s future: financial services, power, energy, hospitality, technology and healthcare.

His track record in banking is among the most consequential in modern African finance. He founded Standard Trust Bank and led its merger with United Bank for Africa, forging a pan-African institution that today operates in 20 African countries, as well as the United Kingdom, France, the UAE and the United States. In America, UBA is the only African banking group with a commercial deposit-taking presence. He served as Group Chairman of UBA from 2014 to 2026.

He also chairs Transcorp Group, Nigeria’s leading listed conglomerate, with interests in power, energy and hospitality. Transcorp’s power business accounts for 15% of Nigeria’s installed generating capacity and anchors a larger ambition: creating Africa’s largest integrated energy business, and ensuring that the value of Africa’s resources is captured in Africa.

He founded Heirs Energies, which acquired Shell’s OML 17 and rapidly tripled production to more than 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), while integrating gas production to meet Nigeria’s domestic energy needs. Heirs Energies became Seplat Energy’s single largest shareholder in January 2026 and both groups now account for circa 20% of Nigeria’s oil production.

With his wife, Dr Awele Elumelu, he established the Tony Elumelu Foundation in 2010 to advance Africapitalism — his conviction that the African private sector is the continent’s most powerful catalyst for social and economic development. Since its flagship Entrepreneurship Programme launched in 2015, the Foundation has committed more than US$120 million in non-refundable seed capital to 24,633 young entrepreneurs across all 54 African countries — businesses that have since generated US$4.2 billion in revenue and created 1.5 million jobs.

In 2020, TIME magazine named Mr. Elumelu as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, and in 2026 Mr. and Dr Elumelu were celebrated as TIME Magazine 2026 TIME100 Philanthropy honourees. Mr. Elumelu sits on a number of global boards, including the Global Leadership Council of UNICEF Generation Unlimited and the International Monetary Fund’s Advisory Council on Entrepreneurship and Growth.

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What too often stands between an idea and a thriving enterprise is not a shortage of ingenuity, but access to the right capital at the right time.

In a recent op-ed for Fortune, our founder Tony O. Elumelu, CFR, makes a compelling case for putting early-stage capital at the centre of Africa’s job-creation conversation. His argument points to a fundamental economic reality: the entrepreneurs capable of creating the next generation of African businesses and jobs cannot build at scale if capital reaches them only after they have already proven their success.

At The Tony Elumelu Foundation, we have seen this reality first-hand since 2010.

Capital at the beginning can change everything

For many African entrepreneurs, the earliest stage of a business is also the most difficult.

An entrepreneur may have identified a genuine market need, developed a viable product and found their first customers, yet still lack the working capital needed to purchase equipment, hire an employee, reach new customers or expand production.

Traditional financing can be particularly difficult to access at this stage. Businesses may not have sufficient collateral, long credit history, or the scale that conventional investors typically require.

This creates a paradox: entrepreneurs are expected to demonstrate growth before they can access the capital that would enable that growth.

Early-stage capital can help break that cycle.

A relatively modest investment, when deployed at the right moment, can enable an entrepreneur to move from an idea to a functioning enterprise, from a sole operator to an employer, and from a local solution to a scalable business.

The impact therefore extends beyond the individual entrepreneur.

When a business grows, it can create jobs. Those jobs support households. Growing businesses create demand for suppliers and service providers. They contribute to local economies and, over time, strengthen the productive capacity of communities and countries.

This is why the conversation about entrepreneurial finance is ultimately a conversation about economic development.

Investing in entrepreneurs means investing in Africa

Since 2010, the Tony Elumelu Foundation has championed the belief that African entrepreneurs are not simply beneficiaries of development; they are active drivers of it.

Through its flagship entrepreneurship programme, the Tony Elumelu Foundation provides young African entrepreneurs with training, mentorship, non-refundable seed capital and access to a wider entrepreneurial network.

The approach is rooted in a simple principle: opportunity should not be determined by geography, background, or access to traditional finance networks.

Africa’s entrepreneurs should have the opportunity to build.

But capital alone is not enough.

An entrepreneur may receive funding and still need to understand how to manage cash flow, reach customers, build a team, formalise a business, navigate markets, or prepare for growth. This is why effective entrepreneurship support must go beyond writing a cheque.

It must build capability alongside capital.

It must provide networks alongside funding.

And it must give entrepreneurs the confidence and knowledge to turn an opportunity into a sustainable enterprise.

“I first learned the importance of giving people a chance when, as a child, I watched my mother build a small restaurant through hard work and determination. Later, I benefited from those who believed in my potential and opened doors for me. I call this “democratizing luck”: ensuring access to opportunity is not limited to a fortunate few.” Tony O. Elumelu CFR

Over 15 years of putting the idea into practice

The recently released 15-Year Impact Report of The Tony Elumelu Foundation, launched on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York, documents our journey and the impact of investing in African entrepreneurship at scale.

Since 2010, the Tony Elumelu Foundation has supported entrepreneurs across all 54 African countries, helping to create opportunities for people who might otherwise have remained outside traditional systems of finance and economic opportunity.

The stories captured in the report are ultimately about more than the number of entrepreneurs supported, or the amount of capital deployed.

It is about what happens when African entrepreneurs are allowed to build.

It is about businesses emerging from ideas.

It is about entrepreneurs employing others.

It is about families gaining new sources of income.

It is about communities developing solutions to local problems.

And it is about demonstrating that African entrepreneurs can be both beneficiaries and architects of the continent’s economic transformation.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation’s 15-year journey offers an important lesson: when investment in entrepreneurship is sustained, inclusive and designed around the realities of African businesses, its potential reaches far beyond individual enterprises.

If we want jobs, we must invest in job creators

Africa’s employment challenge makes this more urgent.

The continent has one of the world’s youngest populations, and millions of young Africans will enter the labour market in the years ahead. Creating productive employment at the scale required will demand more than governments and large corporations alone can provide.

It will require millions of businesses to start, survive, grow and hire.

That means entrepreneurs must be recognised as part of Africa’s employment infrastructure.

The conversation therefore needs to evolve.

Instead of asking only how we can create more jobs, we should also ask:

How do we create more job creators?

• Instead of asking only how we can attract capital to Africa, we should ask:

How do we ensure capital reaches entrepreneurs early enough to make a difference?

• And instead of measuring entrepreneurship support only by the number of people trained, we should ask:

What happens to the businesses, jobs, revenues, and communities that emerge afterwards?

These questions shift the conversation from short-term intervention to long-term economic transformation.

The next chapter belongs to those willing to invest in African ambition

Africa does not lack ideas.

It does not lack ambition.

And it does not lack entrepreneurs.

What remains a critical challenge is ensuring that the continent’s financial systems, institutions and development partners are prepared to back that ambition early enough—and consistently enough—for it to reach its full potential.

The Fortune op-ed is an important reminder of why these matters. But the conversation cannot end with recognising the problem.

It must move towards action.

For governments, this means creating environments in which businesses can start and grow.

For financial institutions, it means developing financing models that reflect the realities of early-stage African businesses.

For investors and development partners, it means looking beyond established enterprises and considering the entrepreneurs who are still building.

And for organisations such as The Tony Elumelu Foundation, it means continuing to demonstrate what is possible when African entrepreneurs are given the capital, knowledge and networks to build.

Fifteen years of experience has reinforced a conviction that remains as relevant today as it was when the Foundation began:

When we invest in African entrepreneurs, we invest in Africa’s future.

The opportunity before Africa is not simply to create more entrepreneurs.

It is to give more of them a genuine chance to succeed and, in doing so, create the businesses, jobs and economic opportunities that will shape the continent’s next chapter.

Read the full Fortune op-ed.

Read The Tony Elumelu Foundation’s 15-Year Impact Report.

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The contrast stayed with him.

Rather than treating waste as simply an environmental problem, Haroun Mahamat Adoum saw an opportunity to build a service that could improve urban sanitation while creating employment and laying the groundwork for recycling.

That vision became The First Waste Management, a growing environmental services company providing household waste collection in N’Djamena and working towards a more sustainable approach to waste management in Chad.

Turning an everyday problem into an enterprise

Waste management may not immediately seem like an area for entrepreneurship, but for Haroun, the need was clear.

As cities grow, so does the volume of waste they produce. Without reliable collection systems, rubbish can accumulate in residential communities, affecting the cleanliness of neighbourhoods and creating wider environmental and public health concerns.

Haroun’s experience abroad gave him a practical reference point for what organised waste management could look like.

He returned with the conviction that Chad needed businesses capable of providing structured services rather than relying solely on informal or inconsistent approaches.

The result was The First Waste Management, built around a straightforward proposition: make waste collection more accessible, organised and reliable for households.

From an idea with no equipment to a working waste collection service

The First Waste Management started with little more than Haroun’s vision.

Before joining the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, the business had no revenue, equipment or operational infrastructure. Turning the concept into a functioning service therefore required both financial resources and the business knowledge to establish a sustainable operating model.

Today, the company provides door-to-door household waste collection in N’Djamena’s 4th arrondissement.

Residents can subscribe to the service for 500 CFA per household, giving them access to a more structured way of disposing of household waste.

The business has also created its first jobs, growing to a team of five employees, including one woman.

While household collection is the company’s starting point, Haroun’s ambitions extend further. He is working towards introducing recycling initiatives that can recover useful materials from collected waste, reduce environmental pollution and create additional economic value from resources that would otherwise be discarded.

How the Tony Elumelu Foundation helped Haroun Mahamat Adoum move from vision to action

For Haroun, turning an environmental idea into a functioning business required more than identifying a problem. He needed the capital, entrepreneurial knowledge and support network to build the foundations of the company.

In 2021, he joined the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, receiving US$5,000 in seed capital, alongside business training, mentorship and access to the Foundation’s pan-African entrepreneurial network.

The support helped move The First Waste Management from concept to operation.

Haroun used the seed capital to acquire essential equipment, launch household waste collection and recruit his first employees. The Foundation’s training also strengthened his understanding of business planning, operations and growth management.

The programme’s value extended beyond the funding itself. Through mentorship and connection to a wider community of African entrepreneurs, Haroun gained access to perspectives and knowledge that could support him as he navigated the challenges of building an emerging environmental services business.

Building a business around cleaner communities

The significance of The First Waste Management goes beyond the collection of household rubbish.

For communities, reliable waste collection can make everyday life more organised and contribute to cleaner residential environments. For the business itself, the model creates opportunities to build an emerging environmental services industry in Chad.

Employment is another part of that equation.

As the company grows, opportunities can emerge across collection, logistics, administration, recycling and other areas of waste management. Haroun’s early decision to build a formal enterprise around waste services therefore creates a foundation for economic activity alongside its environmental objectives.

His planned move into recycling could take that model further by treating waste not simply as something to remove, but as a resource that can be recovered, processed and reused.

That shift—from waste disposal to resource recovery—is central to the longer-term opportunity Haroun sees for the business.

A bigger vision for waste management in Chad

Haroun Mahamat Adoum’s ambition is not limited to one neighbourhood in N’Djamena.

He plans to expand The First Waste Management into other major cities across Chad while developing recycling facilities and community education programmes around responsible waste disposal and waste segregation.

The objective is to build a more integrated waste management model—one that combines collection, environmental awareness and resource recovery.

For a country where structured waste management remains an emerging area, that represents an opportunity to build the sector alongside the growth of its cities.

Haroun’s journey also illustrates how entrepreneurship can emerge from personal experience. His exposure to organised sanitation systems abroad did not simply change his perspective on waste; it helped him recognise a service gap that could be addressed through a locally built business.

The road ahead for Haroun Mahamat Adoum

The First Waste Management is still at an early stage, but its direction is clear.

Haroun wants to expand household collection, introduce recycling and build systems that can serve communities at a larger scale. His longer-term ambition is to contribute to sustainable urban sanitation across Chad and position the country as a stronger example of environmental entrepreneurship in Central Africa.

For Haroun Mahamat Adoum, cleaner cities are not an abstract environmental goal. They are the result of practical systems, reliable services and people willing to build them.

Through The First Waste Management, he is turning that belief into a business—one household, one employee and one cleaner community at a time.

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Philanthropy is changing. 

Across the world, organisations working to advance the public good are confronting a rapidly shifting landscape shaped by technological disruption, climate change, economic inequality and changing social realities. For philanthropic institutions, the question is no longer simply how to respond to these challenges, but how to rethink the models, partnerships and instruments through which lasting impact can be created. 

It was against this backdrop that leaders from across the philanthropic sector gathered in São Paulo on 27 August for the Brazilian Philanthropy Forum 2026, convened under the theme “Philanthropy: Between Essence and Reinvention.” 

Representing the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), CEO Somachi Chris-Asoluka brought an African perspective to the conversation, sharing lessons from the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s work supporting entrepreneurs across the continent and making the case for a more inclusive, locally rooted, and partnership-driven approach to development. 

For Somachi, reinvention must not mean losing sight of philanthropy’s fundamental purpose. 

It must mean finding better ways to advance it. 

Shift from philanthropy to agency 

Speaking during a panel discussion at the Forum, Somachi reflected on the origins of the Tony Elumelu Foundation and the philosophy of Africapitalism, a word coined by our Founder, Tony O. Elumelu, CFR. 

Established in 2010, the Tony Elumelu Foundation was built around a clear conviction: African entrepreneurs can and must play a leading role in transforming the continent. 

That conviction is rooted in our founder’s philosophy of Africapitalism: the belief that the private sector has a critical role in Africa’s development by investing in strategic sectors not only for profit, but for shared prosperity.  

The philosophy challenges the traditional separation between commercial success and social impact. 

Businesses can generate returns for shareholders while creating opportunities for employees, communities and wider economies. Philanthropic capital, similarly, can do more than address immediate needs; it can help unlock the potential of individuals who can go on to create value for others. 

This philosophy sits at the heart of TEF’s approach to entrepreneurship. 

“We believe that the transformation of the African continent will not come from the private sector, the corporate, government, and it will not come from international development agencies, but it will come from our entrepreneurs,” Somachi Chris-Asoluka 

Africa is the world’s youngest continent, with a median age of 17. For its rapidly growing young population, the need for economic opportunity is immediate. 

“These young people need economic opportunities. They need jobs, and they cannot wait for these jobs to come,” she said. 

The implication is clear: Africa’s young people cannot simply be positioned as beneficiaries of development. They must be recognised as builders of it. 

Investing in entrepreneurs, investing in economies 

Since 2015, the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme has sought to turn this philosophy into action by providing entrepreneurs with the combination of capital, knowledge, mentorship and networks required to build sustainable businesses. 

The scale of the intervention is significant. 

Through its programmes, the Foundation has trained 2.5 million young Africans, funded 27,000 entrepreneurs with more than US$130 million in direct funding, and supported businesses that have collectively created 1.5 million jobs and generated more than US$4 billion in revenue. 

For TEF, these figures represent more than programme outputs. 

They demonstrate what can happen when philanthropic capital is deployed to unlock entrepreneurial agency. 

“This is revenue that did not exist before we intervened in these young people,” she said. 

The point speaks directly to the Forum’s central conversation about reinvention. 

The question is not only how much capital philanthropy deploys, but what that capital makes possible after it is deployed. 

When an entrepreneur receives funding, develops a business, employs people, and generates revenue, the impact can extend far beyond the original intervention. Capital begins to circulate through communities and economies, creating additional opportunities along the way. 

This is the catalytic potential of philanthropy: using relatively targeted interventions to unlock much broader economic and social value. 

Technology Should Widen Opportunity, Not Deepen Divides 

Our CEO Somachi Chris-Asoluka also reflected on one of the defining forces reshaping development today: technology. 

As a last-mile implementer, The Tony Elumelu Foundation works directly across all 54 African countries. This requires both a deep understanding of local realities and the ability to connect entrepreneurs across vast geographical, economic, and cultural contexts. 

Technology has become an important part of that equation. 

The Foundation developed TEFConnect, its proprietary digital platform connecting African entrepreneurs and members of the diaspora to business tools, knowledge, mentors, investors, partnerships, marketplaces and one another. 

But Somachi stressed that digital transformation must be approached with intentionality. 

“We don’t want to use technology to deepen divides that already exist, to deepen inequalities that already exist,” she said. “We want to make sure that we’re using technology to make opportunity more inclusive and more widespread.” 

That principle has shaped the evolution of TEFConnect. 

The platform has been designed to accommodate entrepreneurs living with disabilities, who represent 15% of TEF’s entrepreneurs, ensuring that accessibility is embedded into the digital experience rather than treated as an afterthought. 

The Foundation has also adapted the platform in response to the experiences of women entrepreneurs. 

When TEF first launched its entrepreneurship programme, applications were initially being completed by young men and women in roughly equal numbers. Yet while 70 per cent of male applicants completed their applications, fewer than 30 per cent of women did. 

The disparity prompted a closer examination of the barriers women were facing. 

The answer was not simply to encourage more women to participate. It was to redesign the system around their realities. 

Women entrepreneurs explained that they were balancing entrepreneurship with childcare, household responsibilities, and other demands on their time. A training platform designed primarily around conventional working hours therefore created an additional barrier. 

TEF responded by making its learning content self-paced, enabling entrepreneurs to access training around their lives rather than requiring their lives to conform to the platform. 

It is a small but powerful illustration of human-centred thinking in development: sometimes the barrier is not a lack of ambition or willingness to participate, but a system that has been designed without sufficiently understanding the people it is meant to serve. 

The same principle applies to entrepreneurs in rural and underserved communities. 

Where digital penetration and affordability remain challenges, technology must not become another mechanism for exclusion. TEFConnect has therefore been designed to be low-data and accessible, helping entrepreneurs in remote communities participate in the digital economy. 

Scale Should Not Come At The Expense Of Context 

Operating across 54 countries presents another challenge: how can an organisation achieve continental scale while remaining responsive to local realities? 

There is no single African entrepreneurial experience. 

Markets differ. Regulations differ. Infrastructure differs. Languages, cultures and economic conditions differ. 

Yet the need for opportunity is remarkably universal. 

“African entrepreneurs are no different from the entrepreneurs here in Brazil and in Latin America,” Somachi observed. “All entrepreneurs need the same things.” 

They need funding. 

They need people willing to believe in them. 

They need opportunities to demonstrate what they can do. 

And they need ecosystems that allow their businesses to grow. 

This creates an important distinction between standardisation and scale. 

Scale does not necessarily require every entrepreneur, community or country to receive the same intervention in exactly the same way. Rather, it can mean creating systems and infrastructure that are sufficiently strong to operate at scale while remaining adaptable enough to respond to local realities. 

For organisations working across different contexts, flexibility becomes essential. 

As Somachi later noted, organisations should remain committed to their missions while being willing to adapt how they pursue them. 

“What I think is important is that you should be flexible, you should be adaptable,” she said. “I don’t think that it’s as important as how you get there, as long as the results are identical to what you want to see for your community.” 

The principle is particularly relevant to philanthropy, where complex social problems rarely have neat or linear solutions. 

Impact Must Be Built Into The DNA 

Somachi also offered a practical message for smaller organisations working to create change. 

Impact measurement and communication should not be treated as something reserved for organisations that have already achieved scale. 

“Impact should be in the DNA of the organisation,” she said. “Everything that you do, you should create the data, create the records, and create the visibility platforms to show the world the impact that you’re creating in your own small corner.” 

The advice speaks to an increasingly important reality within the philanthropic sector. 

Impact is not only about what an organisation achieves. It is also about its ability to understand, demonstrate and communicate that achievement. 

Building these systems from the beginning enables organisations to learn from their work, strengthen accountability and make a stronger case for future investment and partnerships. 

But Somachi paired this emphasis on evidence with another principle: humility. 

Organisations must continue to learn. 

“Never be satisfied or complacent with what you know,” she urged, encouraging smaller organisations to remain open to other experiences, perspectives and approaches. 

Expertise in a particular community or terrain is valuable. But it becomes even more powerful when combined with the willingness to listen, adapt and learn from others. 

Africa is open for partnership 

As the Forum explored the balance between philanthropy’s enduring purpose and the need for reinvention, Somachi’s message offered a distinctly African proposition. 

Africa does not need to be viewed solely through the lens of its challenges. 

It is a continent of young people, entrepreneurs, markets, ideas and possibilities — and its development will increasingly be shaped by Africans themselves. 

“Africa is the future for the world,” Somachi said. “And we’re open for business, open for partnerships, open for investment, open for dialogue.” 

That openness extends beyond the continent. 

The future she envisages is one in which Africa and Latin America, alongside other regions of the Global South, can build stronger relationships, exchange knowledge and create new pathways for shared prosperity. 

It is also a future in which philanthropy is not defined solely by the act of giving, but by its ability to catalyse agency, unlock potential and build systems that allow people to create lasting value for themselves and their communities. 

That may ultimately be what reinvention means. 

The essence remains the same: advancing the public good. 

But the tools, partnerships and people at the centre of that work are evolving. 

And as Somachi reflected at the Brazilian Philanthropy Forum, the opportunity is not to build that future in isolation. 

“We can achieve much more by coming together than doing it in isolation.” 

For the Tony Elumelu Foundation, that means continuing to invest in Africa’s entrepreneurs while building bridges with partners and institutions around the world. 

Because the future of philanthropy may be global. 

But the solutions will be stronger when they are locally rooted, entrepreneur-led and built together. 

 Watch her session here : https://youtu.be/7-jZzq4G9DM?si=8cno8HUQZ-ufCcy9

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Tatenda Mungofa saw a gap between vehicles and the roads they travelled

African drivers operate in an unusually diverse range of conditions.

Urban roads sit alongside rural routes. Smooth highways can quickly give way to rough terrain. Vehicles may encounter intense heat, dust, flooding and infrastructure that varies considerably from one location to another.

For drivers and businesses, reliability is therefore not a luxury.

It directly affects the cost of moving people, transporting goods and running businesses.

Mungofa’s experience of these conditions helped shape his thinking about automotive design.

The question was not whether imported vehicles could work in Africa. Many do.

The more fundamental question was whether Africa could develop vehicles with its own operating realities in mind from the beginning.

That question became the starting point for Mureza Auto.

What is Mureza Auto?

Mureza Auto is an automotive company founded by Tatenda Mungofa that is focused on developing and assembling vehicles for African markets.

The company’s approach combines automotive engineering, digital design and flexible manufacturing concepts to develop vehicles intended for demanding operating environments.

Rather than treating local conditions as an afterthought, Mureza’s design philosophy considers factors such as:

• Ground clearance
• Suspension performance
• Heat management
• Durability
• Maintainability
• Manufacturing flexibility
• Local component integration

Digital design and virtual prototyping also play a role in the development process, allowing engineers to evaluate different vehicle configurations before committing to physical production.

That matters because automotive manufacturing is capital intensive. Testing ideas digitally can help engineering teams identify problems earlier and refine designs before they reach the production stage.

Building a car is also about building an industry

The significance of Mureza Auto extends beyond the vehicle itself.

Automotive manufacturing sits at the intersection of multiple industries. A functioning vehicle ecosystem requires engineers, component manufacturers, technicians, software specialists, assembly workers, logistics providers, distributors and after-sales service networks.

That means a locally manufactured vehicle can potentially create value far beyond the factory floor.

Mungofa’s ambition therefore fits into a larger industrial question facing Africa:

Can the continent move from being primarily a consumer of manufactured products to becoming a producer of them?

For Mureza Auto, local manufacturing and supplier development are part of that equation.

The company’s modular approach is intended to provide flexibility as production develops, while creating opportunities to incorporate locally sourced components as supplier networks mature.

It is an incremental approach to industrialisation rather than a claim that an entire automotive ecosystem can appear overnight.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation backed the entrepreneur behind the ambition

Large industrial ideas require capital, but they also require entrepreneurial discipline.

In 2020, Tatenda Mungofa participated in the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, receiving US$5,000 in seed capital, business training, mentorship and access to the Foundation’s pan-African entrepreneurial network.

For an entrepreneur pursuing a capital-intensive manufacturing business, this kind of early-stage support can provide useful room to develop the business behind the engineering vision.

The programme also placed Mungofa within a broader community of African entrepreneurs building businesses across different sectors and markets.

The Foundation’s role was to provide catalytic support.

The ambition, technical development and persistence required to build Mureza Auto remained Mungofa’s.

Tatenda Mungofa is creating more than vehicles

The automotive industry is one of the clearest examples of how entrepreneurship can create value through an ecosystem rather than a single product.

Mureza Auto’s multidisciplinary operations span areas including automotive engineering, digital design, assembly and industrial development. The company has reported a workforce in the 11–50 employee range, creating skilled opportunities around its manufacturing activities.

But the potential economic impact goes further.

A growing automotive manufacturer can generate demand for suppliers of components, electronics, tyres, bodywork, maintenance equipment and other services.

It can also create opportunities for technicians, designers, software developers and other skilled professionals.

This makes automotive entrepreneurship particularly relevant to Africa’s industrialisation agenda.

The objective is not simply to produce a finished vehicle.

It is to develop the capabilities, knowledge and commercial relationships that make more manufacturing possible.

Why building African vehicles matters

Africa’s automotive market is large and diverse, but the continent’s position in the global automotive value chain remains uneven.

Many African countries import finished vehicles while opportunities for local design, component production and manufacturing remain comparatively limited.

Mureza Auto’s proposition challenges that pattern.

Even at an early stage, the company demonstrates the value of asking different questions about African manufacturing.

What should a vehicle designed around African conditions look like?

What components can eventually be produced locally?

What skills can be developed around automotive manufacturing?

And how can African companies participate in a sector historically dominated by global manufacturers?

Tatenda Mungofa is attempting to answer those questions through a business rather than simply through theory.

From Zimbabwean entrepreneur to African automotive builder

Mungofa’s story is ultimately about changing the starting point.

Instead of asking how an imported vehicle can be adapted to African conditions, he is asking what becomes possible when African conditions influence the design process from the outset.

That distinction may appear subtle.

Industrial strategy rarely is.

Design decisions influence manufacturing requirements. Manufacturing creates supplier demand. Supplier networks create jobs and skills. Skills strengthen future manufacturing capacity.

Over time, these connections can become the foundations of an industrial ecosystem.

That is the longer-term opportunity behind Mureza Auto.

Looking ahead

Mureza Auto’s next challenge is also its biggest: turning engineering ambition into repeatable, commercially viable production at scale.

The company is working towards production readiness, manufacturing configurations and partnerships that can support future vehicle assembly.

Success will require capital, reliable supply chains, engineering talent, regulatory approvals and customers willing to adopt locally developed vehicles.

Those are significant hurdles.

But they are precisely why entrepreneurs such as Tatenda Mungofa matter to Africa’s industrial future.

The continent cannot build manufacturing capacity simply by declaring that it wants more of it. Someone has to attempt the difficult work of designing products, testing them, finding customers, developing suppliers and building the companies that can make production possible.

Mungofa is doing that with automobiles.

His story is therefore bigger than a car.

It is about whether Africa can increasingly become a place where products are not only bought, but imagined, engineered and made.

And for Tatenda Mungofa, that future begins on the road.

The post Tatenda Mungofa Is Building Vehicles for Africa, Not Just Selling Cars to It appeared first on The Tony Elumelu Foundation.

Through the marketplace and logistics platform, Orji is helping informal and small businesses connect with digital consumers while providing them with practical tools to participate in online trade. His vision is clear: businesses should not have to become large companies before they can benefit from the digital economy.

Hyacinth Orji saw a digital gap hiding in everyday commerce

Nigeria’s informal economy is deeply embedded in everyday life.

For many small businesses, however, customer acquisition still depends heavily on physical visibility, personal networks and word-of-mouth recommendations. That model can work, but it can also limit a business’s ability to reach customers beyond its immediate surroundings.

As consumer behaviour changes, that limitation becomes more significant.

Customers increasingly expect to discover products online, place orders digitally and have purchases delivered to them. Yet a small vendor may not have the time, technical knowledge or resources to build an e-commerce operation independently.

Hyacinth Orji recognised that the problem was not necessarily that these businesses were resistant to technology.

Many simply lacked the infrastructure that would make digital participation practical.

His experience in business and logistics helped him see the opportunity from both sides: customers wanted convenience, while vendors needed visibility and a reliable way to fulfil orders.

Quick Waka emerged from that intersection.

What is Quick Waka?

Quick Waka is a Nigerian technology-enabled marketplace and logistics platform designed to help local businesses connect with customers online.

Rather than expecting informal businesses to build sophisticated digital operations themselves, the platform brings several parts of the commerce journey together.

Quick Waka supports businesses with functions including:

• Vendor onboarding and product listings
• Online product discovery
• Order management
• Logistics coordination
• Last-mile delivery
• Digital access for traditionally offline businesses

The model is particularly relevant to businesses such as restaurants, pharmacies, grocery retailers and other local merchants.

By combining a marketplace with logistics, Quick Waka addresses two connected problems at once: how customers find local businesses and how businesses get products to those customers.

That integration matters.

An online storefront is of limited value if a vendor cannot reliably fulfil an order. Similarly, delivery infrastructure is less useful if customers cannot easily discover the businesses behind it.

Quick Waka is designed around the full journey.

Making digital commerce practical for small businesses

For a large retailer, moving online can involve dedicated technology teams, digital marketing budgets, inventory systems and established delivery networks.

A small neighbourhood business operates differently.

The owner may be managing sales, inventory, suppliers and customers simultaneously. Adding a complex e-commerce system to that workload can create another barrier rather than solve one.

This is where Hyacinth Orji’s approach becomes particularly relevant.

Quick Waka is built to reduce the amount of digital infrastructure individual vendors need to create and manage themselves.

Instead of asking every small business to build its own online ecosystem, the platform creates shared infrastructure through which multiple vendors can participate in digital commerce.

That model has implications beyond convenience.

It can give businesses greater visibility, expose them to customers outside their immediate physical location and introduce more structured processes for receiving and fulfilling orders.

For entrepreneurs operating on thin margins, those incremental efficiencies can matter.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation helped move Quick Waka from vision to growth

Building a marketplace that connects businesses, customers and logistics requires more than a good idea.

It requires capital to build technology, test assumptions and develop operations—and business knowledge to determine which opportunities are worth pursuing.

Through the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, Hyacinth Orji received US$5,000 in seed capital, alongside business training, mentorship and access to the Foundation’s pan-African entrepreneurial network.

The support gave Quick Waka additional resources to strengthen its operations and develop its technology as it pursued a larger market opportunity.

For Orji, the programme also provided access to a wider community of African entrepreneurs navigating many of the same challenges: limited resources, evolving markets and the need to build businesses capable of creating sustainable value.

The Foundation’s contribution sits within the broader journey, but the business remains driven by Orji’s understanding of the problem and his determination to solve it.

Quick Waka is building a bridge between offline and online commerce

The impact of digitalisation is often measured through transactions, platforms and user numbers.

For Hyacinth Orji, however, there is another measure worth considering: how many businesses that were previously invisible online can now be discovered digitally.

Quick Waka has supported hundreds of registered vendors and reached thousands of users, according to the business information provided.

That represents more than another group of online sellers.

It represents businesses gaining access to a new customer channel.

The platform’s logistics operations also create economic opportunities for people involved in delivery, field operations, customer support and digital business management.

In this way, the company’s model extends beyond e-commerce.

It connects different parts of a local commercial ecosystem—vendors, customers and delivery operators—through a common digital infrastructure.

The entrepreneur behind the platform understands the businesses he wants to serve

The strongest digital products often begin with an observation about human behaviour.

For Orji, that observation was that many local businesses already had something customers wanted.

The missing piece was often the ability to be found and served through the channels customers were increasingly using.

A local food vendor might have loyal customers but little online visibility. A neighbourhood pharmacy might serve its surrounding community but lack a digital ordering channel. A small retailer might have useful products but no efficient way of reaching customers beyond passing foot traffic.

These are not necessarily failures of entrepreneurship.

They are infrastructure gaps.

Quick Waka is Orji’s attempt to close some of those gaps without requiring small businesses to abandon the way they already operate.

The ambition is not to replace Nigeria’s informal markets.

It is to give them another layer.

Why Hyacinth Orji’s work matters

Digital transformation can create new opportunities, but it can also widen existing inequalities if access to technology is limited to businesses that already have capital, skills and infrastructure.

That makes digital inclusion an important part of Nigeria’s e-commerce story.

If online commerce is to become a meaningful driver of broad-based economic participation, small businesses need pathways into the ecosystem.

Hyacinth Orji is building one such pathway.

Through Quick Waka, he is working to make digital visibility, order management and delivery infrastructure more accessible to businesses that have traditionally depended on physical markets.

The significance extends beyond individual vendors.

When more small businesses can participate in digital commerce, customers gain more choice, local supply chains can become more connected and new economic activity can emerge around technology and logistics.

Looking ahead: bringing more of Nigeria’s everyday economy online

Nigeria’s digital economy is still evolving.

The next chapter will not be written only by large technology companies or established online retailers. It will also be shaped by entrepreneurs who understand how millions of everyday transactions actually happen.

Hyacinth Orji is building in that space.

His vision for Quick Waka is rooted in a simple but consequential proposition: the businesses that keep neighbourhoods running should have a place in the digital economy too.

The opportunity is therefore bigger than putting shops online.

It is about creating the infrastructure that allows local businesses to be discovered, ordered from and connected to customers without losing the strengths that made them valuable in the first place.

For Hyacinth Orji, the future of Nigerian commerce is not a choice between the traditional market and the digital marketplace.

It is the possibility of connecting the two.

The post Hyacinth Orji Is Bringing Nigeria’s Informal Markets Into the Digital Economy appeared first on The Tony Elumelu Foundation.

David Mustapha believes technology can reduce the uncertainty that comes with online shopping. Despite photos, descriptions, and reviews, customers often struggle to accurately visualise products, leading to disappointment, returns, and lost trust for businesses.

As the Founder of XRNET, a Nigerian software company, he is using artificial intelligence, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and 3D technology to give online shoppers a more realistic way to experience products before making purchasing decisions. The company’s proposition is built around a simple idea: the more customers understand what they are buying, the more confidently they can buy it.

Who is David Mustapha?

David Mustapha is a Nigerian technology entrepreneur and the Founder of XRNET, an AI-powered software company focused on immersive e-commerce experiences.

Based in Lagos, Mustapha has a background in systems engineering and a history of building technology businesses. Before XRNET, he co-founded OrderEat, an online food-ordering platform developed while he was a student at the University of Lagos.

That earlier experience exposed him to the practical challenges of building digital products around everyday consumer behaviour.

With XRNET, he turned his attention to another problem in online commerce: how to make digital shopping feel more trustworthy and more like the physical experience of examining a product before buying it.

What is XRNET?

XRNET is an AI-powered e-commerce technology platform that uses augmented reality, virtual reality and 3D product visualisation to help customers interact with products digitally before purchasing them.

The platform allows businesses to create digital storefronts where customers can explore products in greater detail.

For physical products, immersive 3D and AR features can provide a clearer sense of appearance, scale and context. XRNET has also developed storefront tools that allow businesses to establish an online presence without having to build a traditional website from scratch.

This positions XRNET at the intersection of artificial intelligence, immersive technology and e-commerce—three rapidly evolving areas of the digital economy.

David Mustapha is tackling a fundamental problem with online shopping

The challenge XRNET addresses is not simply that online shopping lacks technology.

It is that online shopping can lack confidence.

When customers cannot physically examine an item, businesses have to work harder to communicate what they are selling. Product photographs, descriptions and reviews help, but they do not always answer the questions customers have before clicking “buy”.

David Mustapha’s approach is to make the digital experience more interactive.

Instead of simply looking at a photograph, customers can engage with a digital representation of the product. In an AR-enabled experience, for example, a shopper can potentially visualise an item within their own environment before completing a purchase.

The objective is not technology for technology’s sake. It is to give customers more information at the moment when they are deciding whether to spend their money.

From immersive shopping to digital storefronts for SMEs

XRNET’s opportunity extends beyond large retailers.

Small and medium-sized enterprises often face a different challenge: establishing a credible digital presence without the resources required to build and maintain complex e-commerce infrastructure.

XRNET’s storefront model is designed to lower that barrier.

The platform enables businesses to establish online stores while incorporating features such as immersive product displays. More recent XRNET offerings also include digital storefronts for service businesses, with tools for bookings, customer engagement and payments.

That makes the platform relevant to a broader category of African businesses moving from informal or predominantly offline commerce towards digital channels.

For these businesses, the question is no longer simply “How do I get online?”

It is becoming:

“How do I create an online experience that makes customers want to buy?”

The Tony Elumelu Foundation gave David Mustapha room to build

Building frontier technology requires more than an idea.

It requires capital, business discipline, mentorship and access to people who can challenge an entrepreneur’s assumptions.

In 2024, David Mustapha was selected for the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, joining a cohort of African entrepreneurs supported through training, mentorship, seed capital and access to the Foundation’s pan-African entrepreneurial network. The Tony Elumelu Foundation’s 2025 Annual Report identifies XRNET as a Nigeria-based, TEF-funded software-development business.

For Mustapha, the support came at an important stage in XRNET’s development, providing resources that could be directed towards strengthening the company’s technology and commercial model.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation’s role is important precisely because it does not replace the entrepreneur’s vision. It gives founders like Mustapha additional resources to test, refine and pursue that vision.

David Mustapha’s early traction shows demand for immersive commerce

XRNET has already begun attracting businesses interested in experimenting with immersive digital commerce.

Third-party reporting has documented more than 55 SMEs using XRNET’s immersive AR and 3D online stores, while the company has also reported more than 50 sign-ups during its first month of launch.

The company has continued developing its product infrastructure, including its XRNET Storefront and software tools designed to make its technology more broadly usable by businesses.

These developments point towards a larger opportunity: making immersive commerce accessible beyond major retailers and technology-heavy brands.

For SMEs, the ability to combine a digital storefront with richer product experiences could become an important differentiator as more businesses compete for customers online.

Why David Mustapha’s work matters

The next phase of e-commerce will not be defined solely by how many people shop online.

It will be defined by how much they trust the experience.

That distinction matters in markets where consumers are increasingly discovering products through social media, mobile platforms and digital storefronts while businesses compete for attention in crowded online environments.

David Mustapha is betting that immersive technology can make that experience clearer.

His work also reflects a broader shift in African technology entrepreneurship: building products specifically around the realities of African consumers and SMEs rather than simply importing models developed elsewhere.

If successful, XRNET’s approach could help businesses communicate their products more effectively while giving consumers greater confidence before making purchases.

What comes next for David Mustapha and XRNET?

The technology behind immersive commerce is still evolving.

Artificial intelligence is becoming more capable. Smartphone cameras are increasingly sophisticated. Three-dimensional product modelling is becoming more accessible. And consumers are becoming more comfortable interacting with brands through digital environments.

For David Mustapha, that convergence creates an opportunity to make immersive shopping a normal part of e-commerce rather than an expensive novelty.

The ambition extends beyond making online shopping more visually impressive.

It is about making it more informative.

Because the future of e-commerce may not belong to the businesses with the most products or the loudest advertising. It may belong to those that can answer the customer’s most basic question before the transaction happens:

“Can I trust what I am seeing?”

Through XRNET, David Mustapha is building technology around that question—and betting that greater clarity can become one of the most valuable features in African e-commerce.

The post David Mustapha: 5 Ways AI Is Transforming E-Commerce In Nigeria appeared first on The Tony Elumelu Foundation.