Young Rwandans who have featured in the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Foundation (TEEF) have formed a forum to scale up their network.

Frank Mugarura, a TEEF alumnus and owner of Gravity Rwanda, a branding and marketing company based in Kigali, was voted the first president of Tony Elumelu alumni hub in Rwanda.

“We will focus on giving our peers timely information about applications and by helping them in pitch their ideas in writing,” he said.

On the sidelines of the Afreximbank meeting in Kigali, Tony Elumelu, the Nigerian philanthropist and his team blamed lack of confidence for the low number of young Rwandan entrepreneurs — 23 out of 1,000 — who are selected for mentorship.

“Young Rwandan entrepreneurs have amazing ideas but still lack confidence to say, yes, I can do this; yes, my idea can work; yes, there is market opportunity for my idea,” said Parminder Vir, the CEO of TEEF.
“One of the challenges Rwandan entrepreneurs face is in writing down their business plans. That and lack of experience in such competitions,” said Pacifique Nshimiyimana, the founder of Real Green Gold, and TEEF alumnus.

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He added that many are yet to see business opportunities in agriculture, an area that is preferred by TEEF as 30 per cent of entrepreneurs selected in the past two years were in agribusinesses.
Those selected by the foundation get 12 weeks business training, and a seed capital of $5,000. They are then connected to a mentor.

While meeting the Rwandan young entrepreneurs, Mr Elumelu said TEEF is determined to ensure that Africa’s next generation of entrepreneurs have the platform they need

“to turn their entrepreneurial aspirations into sustainable businesses that will drive economic growth and job creation across Africa.”
The foundation is open to collaborating with other partners.

“Having met some other incubators and hubs, we will build relationship with them because they have local resources. We will share our programme and as we select the next cohort,

"they can help Rwandan entrepreneurs maybe in preparation of the application forms or even in disseminating the information,” Ms Parminder said
The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) has promised to work with TEEF in building entrepreneurship capacity.

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“Let me make a commitment on behalf of the board of governors of ACBF, who are the ministers of finance, as well as the executive board that we will find a way of scaling this up in a significant way,” pledged Prof Emmanuel Nnadozie, ACBF executive secretary.

For any partnership, TEEF will provide the training programme as well as the technology platform, if the other partner is bringing the $5,000 seed capital to the table.