Billionaire philanthropist and Tony Elumelu marked his birthday on Sunday by announcing the 12th cohort of the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, which supports thousands of young African founders across the continent.
In a post shared on his X handle, Elumelu reflected on his personal journey and the philosophy underpinning the initiative.
“For a long time, I believed luck was something that just happens to you. Then I realised, luck can be engineered. Opportunity can be democratised. Hope is not just a feeling; it is a system we can build,” he wrote.
Elumelu highlighted resilience and determination as key criteria in selecting this year’s entrepreneurs. “To our new Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs: this is your moment. We did not choose you because your path was easy. We chose you because you kept going when it wasn’t,” he said.
He further underscored that Africa’s greatest resource is its people, not its oil or gold, and encouraged the cohort to focus on transforming the continent. “In a world full of uncertainty, I have chosen deliberately, every single year, to plant certainty in the lives of young African entrepreneurs. Now, let’s transform our continent together,” Elumelu concluded.
Elumelu and his wife, Awele Elumelu, officially unveiled the new cohort on Sunday. This year’s intake has expanded to 3,200 entrepreneurs from all 54 African countries, selected from over 265,000 applications.
Each entrepreneur will receive a non-refundable seed grant of $5,000—totaling $16 million in direct funding—along with business training, mentorship, and access to the Foundation’s pan-African network.
The announcement follows an open call for applications that ran from January 1 to March 1, 2026, reflecting the Foundation’s continued commitment to nurturing Africa’s next generation of business leaders.
