Welcome to the Virtual Edition!
An annual event held across Africa targeted at the social entrepreneurship ecosystem.
The summit is a partnership by the British Council and Ashoka to accelerate innovative solutions to Africa’s most pressing challenges by inspiring, supporting and connecting leading social entrepreneurs and key ecosystem players across countries, organisations and sectors such as policy, social investment, business and media.
Apply for our upcoming Tailored Support Session:
Branding, Marketing and Storytelling
October
This session provides tailored support to impact and social entrepreneurs on how to develop a business model Canvas to visualize the most important aspects of their business and make it more accessible, and to understand important business relationships and organizational innovation.
Scheduled Events
Explore how Social Change builds Change Makers. Do you think that you are a Social Entrepreneur? Then register today to attend one of our packed sessions and share your view
Impact Africa's media partner, AMAKA Studios caught up with the CEO of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu after her keynote address on the Gender and Youth Session at the Impact Africa 3 Day Conference. In this interview, she expands on the statement she made about the "missing middle" during the Fireside Chat with Eleni Giokos (CNN) and Garance Wattez-Richards (CEO AXA Emerging Customers).
Watch keynote highlights from our March
3-DAY Virtual Conference
This headline event covered the main Summit topics as streams in a series of keynotes followed by panel sessions, featuring global personalities in the social investing & enterprise development world.
These special guests delivered keynote addresses and participated in a "Fireside Chats" to our audience of young African innovators to equip them with tools, advise and guidance as they look to scaling-up their businesses in a constantly changing world.
“…if we can bridge the finance gap so that women have as much access to finance as their male counterparts, we will see a complete explosion of entrepreneurship because the woman is the heartbeat of the home.”
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, TONY ELUMELU FOUNDATION (TEF)
“..everything that links to credit and giving out loans is changing…For example, MFI’s (Micro-Finance Institutions) are struggling to look at whether, they can track on social media, the number of likes, the behavioural components, how this person contributes to a community, how this person is valued by her community and that creates points.”
CEO AXA EMERGING CUSTOMERS WINNER 2020 WOMEN IN INSURANCE AWARD
“For social enterprise to exist successfully for many years we have discovered 4 foundational blocks, First is Ownership – this has to do with proprietary rights as well as taking responsibility for the good, the bad, and the ugly; that comes with any business enterprise”
GENERAL MANAGER, EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT NIGERIA LNG LIMITED (NLNG)
“This is a collective impact so governments and business should be saying let us agree on what we trying to achieve together in our country or in our community, and recognise that there is a role for social enterprises… and collectively we could measure it but also, collectively, we need to invest in it.”
DIRECTOR SCHWAB FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP, HEAD SOCIAL INNOVATION, WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
“I have never had a conversation about ESG or sustainability in my first 7 years as CEO. In my last 3 years as CEO, I had much more discussion about sustainability than even planning a well.”
EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN A.A HOLDINGS AND FOUNDER A.A. FOUNDATION, DIRECTOR, SEPLAT
“The SME segment within sub-Saharan Africa, has been referred to as the missing middle, in the context of financial inclusion or access to financial services. SME’s are by their nature, unable to provide the required collateral that large finance firms require amongst other conditions”
CEO, FSDH ASSET MANAGEMENT
“We started with US$20,000 only in 1995, and today we have provided something like US$2 billion in loans to some 950,000 Tunisians. Mainly to women and youth…if there is, today, something that I should recommend, to all African countries is believe in your young generation, provide loans and support, and training so they can start their business – it is the only way for them to create jobs around them.”
CO-FOUNDER & CHAIRPERSON, ENDA INTER-ARABE
“We have a lot of micro-finance institutions in Togo. The reality is that most of them, will serve traders but not producers…- why traders? Because traders generate a lot of cash on a daily basis and they have the ability to deposit cash and that deposit will go to provide loans to other traders… the issue we are having now is that micro-finance, is only able to serve certain kinds of businesses at a cost that is quite high.”
FOUNDER & CEO, FINLO
Thank you to all participants who submitted their 60 second pitch to our panel of international Venture Capitalist and Scouts.
Winner will be announced soon.
Mentorship Programme.
Tailored Support Session
Web-based clinics designed to give tailored professional coaching and support to young African entrepreneurs looking to improve their business sustainability and growth.
Why attend the summit?
Connect
Connect with the key drivers of social innovation ecosystems in Africa: outstanding social entrepreneurs and young leaders, investors, companies, foundations, public actors and decision makers
Celebrate
Celebrate emerging social entrepreneurs and young leaders with system-changing solutions to societal issues across Africa
Learn
Discover new trends and models on social innovation, deepen expertise on Pan-African approaches to social change and on methodologies to scale social innovation.
Co-create
Generate new connections between social entrepreneurs, business, investors, philanthropy and public actors.
Objectives
Engage social entrepreneurs, donors and policy makers in constructive dialogue around social entrepreneurship
Support social enterprises with the skills, knowledge and networks needed to build resilience in navigating the current times and disruptions caused by the COVID 19 pandemic.
Test out the funding support programme to be included in future editions of the Impact Africa facility.
Changemakers’ Corner
Moses Anibaba, British Council Regional Director speaks about the significance of the Virtual Edition:
“One of the many things we are passionate about in the region is supporting the ambitions of social entrepreneurs”
Pape Samb, Ashoka Africa Diamond Leader speaks about the significance of the Virtual Edition:
“We have a saying at Ashoka and that is "We now live in a changemaker world"! And this is why, at Ashoka, we strive to build communities of change makers who see the world this way. It is this community spirit that we want to nurture and grow”
Virtual Photo Booth!
Show off your A-Game, Visit Today!
It is now closed, but check the Changemakers who took part!
Our Speakers & Partners
