The Tony Elumelu Foundation will announce the 2026 cohort of its flagship entrepreneurship programme on Sunday, March 22, after drawing more than 265,000 applications from all 54 African countries.

The announcement, shared during a media briefing on Saturday, March 21, comes as the foundation prepares to back 3,200 entrepreneurs in 2026 across several programmes and partnerships.

The support will include $16 million (Approx. Rwf23.2 billion) in funding to be disbursed throughout the year, alongside initiatives with global partners.

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The Sunday unveiling will be broadcast live in four languages.

Officials at the foundation say the numbers are a reminder of what happens when young people across Africa are given a chance to compete for capital, training and mentorship in an environment where funding is often the first and biggest hurdle.

"The question we get a lot is why entrepreneurs,” Somachi Chris-Asoluka, chief executive officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, said during the media brief. "Entrepreneurs alone have the capacity, resources and talent and bandwidth to create and scale businesses that help create jobs, which is why at the foundation we help them create the millions of jobs that Africa desperately needs.”

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She said the foundation sees entrepreneurship as one of the most practical answers to some of the continent’s biggest pressures, including unemployment and poverty. Africa, she noted, is the world’s youngest continent, but that youthfulness is also matched by high unemployment in many countries.

In her view, governments and big companies cannot solve that challenge alone.

"We believe that it’s entrepreneurs and their small and medium scale enterprises who have this capacity to create these jobs,” she said.

The scale of interest this year suggests that message continues to resonate. Applications to the flagship programme came from young Africans in all 54 countries, with agriculture, artificial intelligence, health care and the green economy emerging as the top sectors among applicants.

The 2026 cohort will join the TEF alumni network, now more than 24,000 entrepreneurs strong. Selection will be conducted by Ernst & Young, which the foundation says ensures an independent and rigorous assessment of applicants.

Each selected entrepreneur will receive $5,000 in non-refundable seed capital, access to business management training, one-on-one mentorship and entry into a network of investors, partners and fellow entrepreneurs.

The foundation’s support in 2026 will go beyond the flagship programme. Of the 3,200 entrepreneurs to be empowered across its programmes, 1,751 will come through Heirs Holdings Group, including Heirs Energies, Transcorp Power, Transcorp Hotels and United Capital.

Another 1,049 entrepreneurs will be supported in partnership with the European Commission, OACPS, BMZ and GIZ.

Additional cohorts include 100 entrepreneurs each in partnership with Sèmè City Development Agency, DEG, the IKEA Foundation with UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited and the Dutch government, and UNDP with the Rwandan Ministry of Youth and Arts.

Within that continental spread, Rwanda’s share of 100 entrepreneurs sits within the Aguka Ideation Programme. Now in its fourth iteration, the programme has already supported 300 young Rwandans with a combined $900,000 in seed capital and training, positioning itself as a localised extension of the foundation’s broader model.

Aguka, drawn from the Kinyarwanda word for "arise,” targets youth-led ventures in technology, agriculture, health, education and renewable energy, aligning with Rwanda’s development priorities.

Since its launch, the Tony Elumelu Foundation says it has empowered more than 2.5 million young Africans through business management training on TEFConnect and disbursed more than US$100 million in seed capital to over 24,000 selected entrepreneurs.

Collectively, those entrepreneurs have generated $4.2 billion in revenue and created more than 1.5 million direct and indirect jobs, according to the foundation. It also says its support has lifted 2.1 million Africans above the poverty line and positively impacted more than 4 million African households.

Women account for 46 percent of the entrepreneurs supported.

Founder Tony O. Elumelu, C.F.R., said the coming announcement is part of a larger long-term view of Africa’s future.

"The future of Africa will be built by Africans who create businesses, generate jobs and solve the challenges of our continent,” he said. "At the Tony Elumelu Foundation, we believe that empowering entrepreneurs is the most sustainable path to Africa’s economic transformation.”