The Chief Executive Officer of TEF, Mrs Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu,
disclosed this during an Online news briefing with Journalists across Africa.
She said: ” I want to welcome all of you as we unveiled the
TEF Entrepreneurship Programme for 2021, the opening of the application portal
which happened 12 midnight, Jan.1.
“As you all know, the TEF was founded in 2010, and in 2015,
our founder, Mr Tony Elumelu, launched a 100 million dollars commitment to
identify, train, mentor and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs across all 54
African countries, over 10 years.
“So, 2021 marks the seventh edition of the TEF
entrepreneurship programme,” she said.
She added that opening the portal on Jan. 1, marked a new
beginning, a renaissance, a beginning of recovery and a beginning of Africa
taking its space in the global space as a strong thriving economy, led by SMEs
who are the largest generators of job creators on the African continent.
She said that the 2021 application would be different from
what was done in the previous years.
“Previously when you apply for the TEF entrepreneurship
programme, once you apply, you put in your business plan within the application
and those selected will be trained and funded.
“But, this year, just as we did last year, we want to train
a lot more than we would fund, primarily because the feedback we have got from
our entrepreneurs is that training been critical to the success of their
businesses,” she added.
Ugochukwu disclosed that the foundation had trained,
mentored and funded over 9,000 African entrepreneurs till date.
She expressed excitement that the Price Waterhouse and
Coopers, in conjunction with TEF had completed an impact assessment report
which according to her, would be released in the Q1, to mark its 10th year
anniversary.
She also disclosed that the foundation had partnered with
the European Union to fund and train additional 2,400 women on a TEF
Entrepreneurship program for 2021.
According to her, this is in addition to many other
partnerships that the foundation have been running through the years.