$100m lifeline for 1000 entrepreneurs …How far can an idea fly?

The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) sees entrepreneurship development as a sure road to wealth creation. Besides reducing poverty, it remains the fastest avenue to create jobs and promote Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). COLLINS NWEZE, who was at the second TEF Entrepreneurship Forum writes that the Foundation is raising $100 million to empower 10,000 African entrepreneurs within a decade.
Lagos, Nigeria’s financial hub and commercial
nerve centre, was agog at the turn of last month – all for the second annual Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) Entrepreneurship Forum. More than 1,000 entrepreneurs from 54 African countries, many of them visiting the state for the first time, converged on the city centre.
Among the guests at the two day event were the continent’s leading policy makers and business executives, who came to support the Foundation’s $100 million commitment to empower 10,000 African entrepreneurs in ten years.
TEF’s Founder Tony Elumelu took advantage of the event to highlight the essence and power of entrepreneurship development in the economy of nations.
According to him, economies of great nations thrive on the strength and capabilities of their entrepreneur-driven Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). He said the development patterns across the globe, and Africa in particular, show the dominance of entrepreneurship in resource mobilisation and the emergence of