As part of their initiatives to ensure that more Ugandan entrepreneurs emerge as successful applicants in the 2020 Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) entrepreneurship programme, United Bank for Africa- Uganda organized and hosted a free and intensive business training for 70 potential applicants.
The training took place on Wednesday 29th January, 2020, at the bank’s Head office located on Jinja Road.
TEF is a private-sector led philanthropy organisation focused on empowering African entrepreneurs. The foundation was established by Tony Elumelu (CON), who is also the Group Chairman of United Bank for Africa (UBA Plc) operating in twenty African countries and 3 global financial service centres; London, New York and Paris.
The event was led by a trainer/TEF alumni- Mr. Kenneth Twesigye from Tech Buzz Hub who took applicants through the process of application for the program, helping them to diligently complete their applications and emerge as winners of this year’s program. Kenneth also took the opportunity to help some of the attendees better their business models in preparation for the entrepreneurship program.
One of the TEF alumni for the year 2017, Mr. Joseph Ogwal shared his experience with TEF and commended the TEF Chairman, Mr. Tony Elumelu for his demonstrated efforts in helping to grow African entrepreneurs. He also testified to the programme’s transparent nature saying that all winners do get the $5000 seed capital, mentoring and training experience via TEFConnect.
“All you have to do is ensure that your business idea is outstanding and life changing. Submit your best idea and leave the rest to God.” Said Mr. Ogwal to attendees.
Applications for the 2020 Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) entrepreneurship have been open since 1st January and will close on 1st March, 2020. This programme targets small business owners, either with new start-up business ideas or existing businesses of less than 3 years’ existence, operating in any sector across Africa.
UBA’s Mathias Muhwezi told our reporter that the bank has put in place measures to track the performance of beneficiaries with each now assigned a relationship manager.
Successful applicants will join the over 9,000 current beneficiaries, from 54 African countries, and receive business training, mentoring, a non-refundable $5,000 of seed capital with access to global business networking opportunities through the TEF Connect; a fully integrated online real-time application that connects several entrepreneurs, their products and services across the continent.
Last year, the Foundation received about 216,000 applications, with 42% coming from women entrepreneurs, from every country on the continent. Since the programme’s inception, the TEF beneficiaries in Uganda have grown to 600, coming second after Nigeria.
