The third round of the two weeks eFounders Fellowship has just been concluded in China. The round’s cohort included four Nigerian founders–Olugbenga Agboola, Co-founder of Flutterwave Payment Service; Malik Babalola, founder of e-commerce startup Gloo.ng; Chijioke Dozie, founder of One Finance and Investments, developers of the popular loan service Paylater.ng; and Tochukwu Uwakeme, founder of KemResources, an AgroTech startup.
The participants from other countries include Kenya’s Alloys Meshack, founder of Sendy; Leah Uwihoreye of Golden Thoughts from Rwanda; and Bright Chiyundu of KodiPay, an e-payments solution for real estate.
These startups were selected through a multi-stage process and their services cut across a number of industries including eCommerce, logistics, FinTech, tourism, and data analytics.
Our #eFoundersFellowship with @AlibabaGroup continues to empower Africa’s young entrepreneurs not only to succeed in their own ventures, but also to help build a more inclusive digital economy back home. https://t.co/nctLmOXFfL pic.twitter.com/DokiCAMnNR
— UNCTAD (@UNCTAD) July 5, 2018
With 29 startup founders drawn from various African countries, the eFounders Fellowship aims to support entrepreneurs in developing countries grow their digital businesses.
eFounders Fellowship was Founded by Jack Ma, founder of Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba. The Fellowship promises to train 1,000 entrepreneurs from various developing countries over the next five years.
The Fellowship started last year with the support of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Interestingly too, Jack Ma is a Special Adviser to UNCTAD on young entrepreneurs and small business. According to Ma, “Together with UNCTAD, we want to empower Africa’s young entrepreneurs to not only succeed in their own ventures but to return home and demonstrate to others how to build inclusive business models for the digital era.
Together with @AlibabaGroup Jack Ma, @UNCTAD Special Adviser I interacted with African netreneurs attending class 3 of #eFoundersFellowship in Hangzhou. My msg: #Africans must hasten to create their electronic market platforms before outsiders occupy that niche pic.twitter.com/J76icxQKjR
— Mukhisa Kituyi (@DrMukhisaKituyi) June 29, 2018
The two-week course is for entrepreneurs who operate platform-based businesses in the e-commerce, logistics, big data, and tourism industry. The course provides first-hand understanding of digital innovation, using Alibaba and China as a learning curve.
This recent round is the third eFounders Fellowship and it ended on July 5, 2018. A number of African entrepreneurs participated in this round and were drawn from 11 countries including Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia, Egypt, Uganda, Algeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Tunisia.
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