Africa's Business Heroes

INTRODUCTION

During our inaugural year, we partnered with start-up incubators from across the continent, namely:

Kenya

South Africa

Egypt

Nigeria

We also partnered with dozens of influencers, local organizations and service providers to ensure that the ABH is a localized and truly a pan-African effort.

KEY STATS

~10,000

applications received between
27th March 2019 and 30th June 2019

out of 54 African countries
represented in our applicant pool

26%

of our Top 50 finalists were female

2019 SELECTION PROCESS

Once applications closed, all applications underwent a rigorous review and selection process.

Round 1 & 2

Between 6th July – 6th August 2019, we identified our Top 50 Finalists via an online review by our Round 1 judges.
We subsequently held rigorous video-call interviews with our Top 50 to identify our Top 20 finalists.

Semi-Finale

Between 16th – 20th August 2019, our Top 20 were flown in to Nairobi, Kenya to pitch to a panel of renowned judges. After two days of intense pitches and reviews, we finally identified our Top 10 Finalists and ABH Africa's Business Heroes!

Due Diligence

As a final step, PwC conducted thorough investigations on our shortlisted finalists. We announced our Final 10 on 14th October 2019 after due diligence was completed.

2019 LAUNCH

We launched our program with simultaneous events across Africa held by our Africa local hub partners in: Cairo, Egypt; Johannesburg, South Africa; Lagos, Nigeria, and Nairobi, Kenya. Each hub partner held an offline event with panels discussing the prize and entrepreneurship in Africa. The event concluded with Johannesburg, Lagos, Nairobi, and Cairo linking on a live feed on Facebook and followed by a countdown and the live launch of the website.

Nairobi, Kenya

Lagos, Nigeria

Johannesburg, South Africa

Cairo, Egypt

Through the support of our partners and supporters we achieved significant results!

OUR 2019 TOP 10 HEROES & PRIZE DISTRIBUTION

PRIZE
WINNER

Temie Giwa-Tubosun

CEO of LifeBank

$250,000

PRIZE
WINNER

Omar Shoukry Sakr

CEO of Nawah Scientific

$150,000

PRIZE
WINNER

Christelle Kwizera

Founder of Water Access Rwanda

$100,000

OTHER FINALISTS

Moulaye TABOURÉ

CEO of Afrikrea

Dr.Tosan Joseph M

Founder of Black Swan Tech Ltd

Chibuzo Opara

CEO of DrugStoc

Mahmud Johnson

CEO of J-Palm Liberia

Waleed Abd El Rahman

Founder of Mumm

Ayodeji Arikawe

CTO & Co-Founder
of Thrive Agric

Kevine Kagirimpundu

Co-founder of UZURI K&Y

All other finalists received $65,000