The list of the selected entrepreneurs for the 2019 Tony Elumelu Foundation’s entrepreneurship fellowship has been released officially. The complete list can be accessed below; you can also access the PDF version here.
Unlike previous years when 1,000 entrepreneurs were selected from across Africa, the number of selected entrepreneurs for 2019 rose to 3050.
The 2019 edition also saw the shortening of the gender gap among selected winners and a surge in the number of submitted applications.
In 2015 when there 20,000 applications, 76% of winners were male male while only 24% were female. But for 2019 edition, there were a total of 216,000 applications out of which 58% were male while 42% of 3,050 selected entrepreneurs were female.
“Our dream is to see both men and women rising to build businesses that will transform Africa,” the foundation said.
“In countries like Sierra Leone and Seychelles, the percentage of female entrepreneurs that have been selected for the programme is higher than the males. Remarkably, all successful applicants from Seychelles are female.”
Speaking at the event where the official announcement of selected entrepreneurs was made, the founder of the foundation, Tony Elumelu, drew attention to the need for the private sector to play active roles in developing entrepreneurship across Africa.
“The government cannot solve all our problems, our private sector has a very important role to play in developing our economy and society,” he said.
