Building a vibrant ecosystem of partners and judges
The Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) prize competition has expanded its ecosystem of partners and judges for its 4th edition.
With a more robust partner and judge network in place, the ABH program will be able to better fulfill its mission of spotlighting and supporting entrepreneurs from all industries across the continent.
Entrepreneurs and small business owners will have until June 6 to apply for this year’s edition.
ABH is one of the Jack Ma Foundation’s flagship philanthropic programs.
The official slogan for 2022, “It’s African Time”, is a bold call to action to all talented African entrepreneurs who are challenging stereotypes associated with “African time” – creating local impact and building a better, more inclusive future through their businesses.
ABH continues to deepen its partnership with anchor partners – The Room, an initiative of the African Leadership International; SA Innovation Summit (SAIS), RiseUp, VC4A and Ashesi.
Alongside its anchor partners, ABH will provide applicants with a range of training and talent development programs.
ABH has also increased its pool of channel partners to influential stakeholders in Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
These partners will bolster the program’s efforts in finding Heroes across Africa as well as providing participants with additional resources and support.
The channel partner pool now includes African Management Institute (AMI), African Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF), AfriLabs, Briter Bridges, Disrupt Africa, ImpactHub Dakar, MEST Africa, Moroccan Center for Innovation and Social Enterprise (MCISE) and Seedstars International.
Ventureburn, Ventures Africa and AfterSchool Africa will also support ABH’s efforts in amplifying the ongoing call for applications.
In addition, ABH is expanding its community of judges who will help narrow down applications received to the Top 50, Top 20 and Top 10.
ABH Judges currently include senior professionals from companies such as Facebook, Mastercard, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, VC firms as well as established entrepreneurs such as Dr. Anino Emuwa of Avandis Counslting and Rafeh Saleh of Cubit Ventures.
Seasoned entrepreneurs, VCs, academics and business professionals from all sectors are invited to join the ABH community of judges here.
ABH is currently calling for all entrepreneurs, start-ups and business owners across the continent and every sector, age group, and gender to submit their application – in either French or English – for a chance to become one of the Top 10 finalists.
Applicants for this year’s ABH competition have less than three weeks to throw their hats in the ring for their chance to win a share of the US$1.5 million grant.
To date, the competition has already attracted applications from all 54 African countries for the third consecutive year.
In addition to a cash grant, applicants will also gain access to mentoring, networking, and publicity opportunities for their ventures.
All applicants also have access to training and scaling opportunities across a vast range of business disciplines in the form of webinars, presentations, and events. They can also take advantage of the competition’s ABH Community Lead program, which gives them access to Heroes from the competition across the years.
African Press Organization
