Business
|
Entrepreneurship
Tony Elumelu CON (middle) with the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs from 51 African countries at the $100 Million ‘Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme’ for
1000 entrepreneurs which held at Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria in July 2015.
16 •
The Lion King
• July - September 2015
By Parminder Vir*
T
EEP has four main objectives:
Identify start-ups and entrepre-
neurs with ideas that have the
potential to succeed; Grow the
chances of success of their business-
es through training, mentoring, and
access to information and member-
ship to Africa-wide alumni network;
Help to create businesses through
initial seed capital investment and
position them for access to on-going
finance and; Identify structural imped-
iments to entrepreneurship that can
be resolved through changes in gov-
ernment policy.
We affect these objectives through
‘the 7 Pillars of TEEP’ which was
designed to equip entrepreneurs
with the skills needed to build a suc-
cessful business. It includes a cus-
tomized 12-week Start-up Enterprise
Toolkit training course, a vast curated
library of online business resources
and one-on-one mentoring, hosted
on an online mentoring and learn-
ing platform (MLP), participation in
TEEP Bootcamp, $10,000 Seed Capital
investment and lifelong membership
to the TEEP Alumni network.
To integrate Africa, we brought the
1000 selected entrepreneurs from 51
African countries (from large to small
nations, islands, countries on the coast
and those landlocked) to Lagos for
Moulding Africa’s
future entrepreneurs:
The journey so far
a 3-day TEEP Bootcamp in July. For
many of the entrepreneurs, this was
the first time they had met people
from other parts of Africa and have
already begun to build cross border
business partnerships.
Following the TEEP Bootcamp, we
engaged Accenture, to review the
1000 business plans based on which
we have concluded the disburse-
ment of initial $5,000 seed capital
investment from the Foundation with
the potential of a further $5,000 as a
loan or equity. They are now building
their businesses and marketing their
products and services to each other
through the Market Place we have
From the launch on 1st January 2015, I am delighted to say that we have successfully completed the first
cycle of the $100 million Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP).
