Africa’s Business Heroes Launches Community Leads, Introduces New Scaleup Program

The Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) prize competition has announced a new Community Lead and ScaleUp Program to provide ABH applicants and finalists with more enhanced mentoring and networking opportunities.

Now in its fourth year, applications for the ABH grant are now open in both French and English, and the competition has already attracted talented entrepreneurs from almost all 54 African countries, with entrants from a wide range of industries including agriculture, manufacturing, ICT, Education, Fashion, Healthcare, Business Services, Media, and Entertainment.

The ScaleUp program, led by ABH’s partners, will offer entrants comprehensive training sessions covering a wide range of business operational areas for entrepreneurs and small businesses. The initial programs will include a Management Development course led by African Management Institute that will equip managers with skills to empower teams and drive performance, as well as an Investment Readiness program designed by VC4A that will teach fundraising, negotiating with equity investors, debt financing, and other topics.

101000 will oversee fintech training to provide entrepreneurs with the mindset, knowledge, and skills on the latest fintech topics and technologies to become drivers of digital economic growth; and Financial Management by the South African Innovation Summit (SAIS) to explore key financial topics related to financial management to help businesses grow.

To date, the program has attracted 32% female participants and 68 male participants. As a Pan-African and all-inclusive initiative, ABH is encouraging entrepreneurs and small-business owners to enter the competition and compete for many of its benefits, including access to training, mentorship, and a USD $1.5 million pool.

ABH has launched a new ABH ScaleUp program in addition to the Community Leads initiative. The ScaleUp program will provide ABH entrants with comprehensive training sessions covering a wide range of business operational areas for entrepreneurs and small businesses, such as People & HR Management, Strategy Planning, Financial Management, Growth, Fundraising, and Operations & Execution.

The newly launched ABH Community Lead initiative aims to foster greater connection and engagement among ABH finalists and applicants across the African continent, led by winners and finalists. The North African region, for example, will be led by Khadija El Bedweihy, PraxiLabs Egypt, and ABH Local Community Lead for North Africa.

Community Leads in each of these countries will have a platform to engage, collaborate, and build a strong entrepreneurial community in their respective markets. They will host a variety of offline events for ABH finalists, such as coffee, outdoor activities, discussions, and vision boarding, as well as events for ABH applicants, such as information and networking sessions, ABH Show viewing parties, and live streams of the ABH Grand Finale.

West Africa will be led by a 2019 top ten finalist. DrugStoc Nigeria’s Chibuzo Opara “It’s an honor to be a part of this incredible program.” I am humbled to be a community leader working with Nigerian entrepreneurs to help them leverage the ABH platform to solve their problems and build African business giants. “I’m really looking forward to the next few years – keep an eye on it, guys!”

Francophone West African will be led by 2019 top 10 finalist, Abidjan Moulaye Taboure of ANKA Cote de voire , Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kinshasa will be led by 2020 top 50 finalist Patricia Nzolantima of Bizzoly Holdings, Kenya will be led by 2021 top 10 finalist Charlot Magayi of Mukuru Clean Stoves and South Africa by 2021 top 20 finalist Mampho Sotshongaye of Golden Rewards 1981cc.

ABH has launched a new ABH ScaleUp program in addition to the Community Leads initiative. The ScaleUp program will provide ABH entrants with comprehensive training sessions covering a wide range of business operational areas for entrepreneurs and small businesses, such as People & HR Management, Strategy Planning, Financial Management, Growth, Fundraising, and Operations & Execution.

In addition to the training programs available to ABH finalists, the ScaleUp program will include community-based learning sessions open to the entire ABH community, including past applicants. To apply to the 2022 Africa’s Business Heroes competition and gain access to a variety of benefits, visit ABH’s official website.