Tony Elumelu Foundation Launches Digital Platform For African Entrepreneurs

Africa’s leading entrepreneurship focused philanthropy, The Tony Elumelu Foundation launches the world’s largest digital platform for African entrepreneurs and the African entrepreneurship ecosystem –  TEFConnect in Lagos on Thursday at the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Forum 2018, TEFConnect is designed to connect entrepreneurs – mentors, investors, accelerators and incubators – all over the world, enabling them to learn, network, leverage business tools and more.

Harnessing and building on the success of Africa’s largest entrepreneurship catalyst, the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, which has attracted over 300,000 African entrepreneurs as applicants and trained and funded 4,460 to date, the Foundation is further democratising access to opportunity. TEFConnect is an open source platform, which will provide bespoke tools and content to catalyse business development for millions across the continent, through technology and directly applicable content.

Positioned as the “Facebook for African Entrepreneurs”, the TEFConnect platform is a contemporary, intuitive, informative and user-friendly go-to entrepreneurship space, that provides five specific benefits to its users, among others:
•The one-stop digital home for entrepreneurship ecosystem players, including entrepreneurs, incubators, investors, academia and the private sector, providing news, informative resources, entrepreneurship events and opportunities.
•Creating the space to allow African entrepreneurs to transact across countries and regions in Africa’s largest digital marketplace, with traffic reaching millions of consumers.
•Access to free business tools such as financial planning calculators, business plan generators and marketing templates.
•Access to the Foundation’s Entrepreneurship Programme Application Form, Enterprise Toolkit and business mentoring by global business leaders.
•Enabling entrepreneurs to promote their businesses to potential investors and other entrepreneurs for cross-border collaboration.

Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo and Kebbi State Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu were among those who joined TEF Founder Tony Elumelu, for the launch of the platform.
“Our objective is to connect entrepreneurs to three key things needed for success – money, market and business tools,” TEF said in a post on its website.

“The digital hub will convene the full entrepreneurial ecosystem across Africa and beyond including entrepreneurs, investors and the business community on one platform.

October 25, 2018