TEF Entrepreneurship Programme to Fund More Ghanaian Entrepreneurs

Tony Elumelu Foundation is offering young entrepreneurs in Ghana the opportunity to actualize their dreams by securing funding that will enable them establish their own business.

Young people in Ghana have almost become rusty with their business ideas stacked in their minds mostly because of the frustrations and hardship they go through in securing start-up capitals from individuals and financial institutions.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation entrepreneurship programme is offering US$5000 to young entrepreneurs who have been successfully selected to start their business. 27 Ghanaians are currently been funded with an additional US$5,000 interest free loan given to those who are successful in the first year of their business.

The Ghana Hub of the Tony Elumelu Foundation is encouraging young Ghanaian entrepreneurs to participate in the annual TEF Entrepreneurship Programme to establish and grow their business.

Speaking at TEF Alumni Breakfast Meeting in Accra, the Coordinator of Ghana TEF Alumni Association, Godwin Mawutor Wuankah said the plan is to increase their number from 27 to over 100 this year by organizing seminars and social media campaign to encourage more people to apply.

“Raising the start-up capital for new businesses have become a nerve breaking venture in this country. People have brilliant ideas that can transform the economy of this country but the challenge is how to raise the capital. The TEF Entrepreneurship Programme is an opportunity that young people like us can also tap into and establish their own business without any challenge,” he stated.

Some Alumni on the sidelines of the meeting said it is even a very bad choice for any young entrepreneur to go for a loan to start-up a new business indicating that payment of the interest on the loan alone can collapse especially businesses that take two or more years to yield profits.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship programme has invested a total of $14,235,000, including $4,270,500 in agriculture; $1,285,000 in ICT, $1,245,000 in education and training; and $7,400,000 more in start-ups across 19 other sectors.

The Foundation, last month announced it will begin accepting applications for the 4^th cycle of its entrepreneurship development programme from outstanding African entrepreneurs who have start-up or business ideas with high growth potential.

The application portal is opened midnight on 1st January 2018 at www.tonyelumelufoundation.org to citizens and legal residents of all African countries with businesses based in Africa, less than three years old, including new startups.

The Programme is the Founder’s $100 million commitment to identify, train, mentor and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs in 10 years; creating 1,000,000 jobs and $10 billion in social and economic wealth.

After three cycles, the Programme, the only African-funded business development initiative of its kind has received 158,000 applications from African entrepreneurs in 107 countries, including every nation of Africa, empowered nearly 3,000 businesses with 12-weeks of online training; world-class mentoring; access to TEF’s network of start-ups; and seed capital of $5,000.

The Accra TEF Alumni Breakfast Meeting was organized by UBA with live Facebook feed of the event also held at the Foundation’s headquarters in Nigeria.