Today, August 6, women-led B2B Enterprise Development Agency, ScaleUp Africa, will virtually host its inaugural Pan-African Business Festival- ‘IGNITE’ set to promote access to enterprise growth resources for entrepreneurs of African Descent, globally.
The festival is poised to nurture closer economic ties and opportunities for youth and women-led small businesses in Africa and across the global stage with segments and speakers from the worlds of policy, philanthropy, big business, foundations, donors, agriculture, creative/lifestyle, tech.
The festival seeks to curate insights, action-oriented frameworks and new commitments from stakeholders and entrepreneurs with an interest in growing their business relationships with Africa.
By 2050, Africa will account for 50% of the world’s population, with half of its population under 25. To say Africa is the future is an understatement. Africa accounts for a fraction of global trade, however, most black business owners perform below par in comparison to their non-black counterparts due to systemic factors.
“We are keen to connect big business with small businesses, as well as challenge DFIs to work more to develop stronger relationships with Enterprise Development Organisations like ours for better entrepreneurship outcomes.
So, for example, if a large international company signs up to one of our Corporate Enterprise Development programmes, they will bring their extensive experience of operations and tap into the agility of our most impressive entrepreneurs. This is a win-win scenario where corporations could commit to ways of integrating small businesses from our programs, into their global supply chains,” shared Amma Gyampo.
Starting ScaleUp Africa
Co-founded by Board Advisor and Angel Investor, Amma Gyampo and Olivia Asiedu Ntow, a Branding, Communications and Talent Advisor, ScaleUp Africa is on a mission to improve the quality and access to the resources required by African entrepreneurs to achieve truly sustainable income and wealth equity.
ScaleUp Africa offers SME Growth Services, SME Ecosystem Building and Fundraising, Corporate Innovation/Enterprise Services; helping organisations implement and achieve their CSR, ESG, Diversity, Talent and SME Support goals. Through their events, content, training and consulting services the firm’s leadership and team are truly committed to challenging the status quo of enterprise programmes incorporating elements of economic empowerment, impact, skills development and innovation to its enterprise growth programmes.
ScaleUp Africa is also working with African media production mogul, Anita Erskine and training tech firm, e-Campus to roll out an innovative content strategy to disseminate African and Black business growth case studies as education content for women and youth of African descent.
The pair were introduced through a mutual friend and after comparing notes on their respective work, weaknesses and talents, they realised the power in their synergy, which birthed ScaleUp Africa.
“We worked really well together having come together to work on our Survival Series of webinars to support our SME Community navigate through the shock of COVID 19. We had so much support and feedback in response to our personal struggles as entrepreneurs, as well as our willingness to leverage our networks to help our ecosystem when they needed us most,” said Olivia Asiedu-Ntow.
Throughout the month of July, ScaleUp Africa announced the Pan-African Business Festival partners and speakers who include Zeepay, Ashoka, Ahaspora, CDC, The Africa List, Ogilvy, Multimedia Group, Diaspora Network TV, the Bill Gates of Africa – Herman Chinery-Hesse, Dentaa Amoateng MBE, UK Youth Activist and Entrepreneur Karl Lokko, American Media Mogul – Paul C Brunson, African Investors – Maya Horgan-Famodu and Roberta Annan among others.
