According to Forbes The first Forbes Nigeria Summit on June 25, 2020 (12pm-3pm EST) - Online, culminates our first ever Nigeria Accelerator Program for entrepreneurs and startups. The Forbes Nigeria Summit will feature 10+ iconic speakers/mentors, 100 global partners, and 50,000+ digital entrepreneurs and influencers from across Nigeria and its diaspora.
It is an initiative in partnership with the Global Startup Ecosystem to support business resilience in Africa during this Covid-19 pandemic. The summit is free and open to all entrepreneurs, investors and influencers with an interest in the future of Nigeria. Come network with the leaders of Nigeria's Tech and Business community.
Entrepreneurship is all about mindset. Entrepreneurs have enough obstacles to overcome without a global pandemic and a spotlight shining brightly on systematic bias and inequality for Black founders. There are more challenges, risk, pain and uncertainty - in business and life - coming at you from all directions, both in real life and via virtual streams.
Your mindset, what you focus on and all that pain or the good that may come from it will drive your level of success. Okay, I admit that’s my opinion, but it seems to be accurate in my own business efforts and it’s my main take-away from Forbes’ first Nigerian Digital Accelerator in partnership with Global Startup Ecosystem.
I wrote a post about Nigerian entrepreneurs and what the world can learn from the importance of sacrifice. As Africa’s most populous country with an average age of 18, Nigeria will continue to be an important global market. For this program we put together a full agenda, with top speakers around a range of topics including funding, marketing, branding, growth-hacking, etc.. to help these entrepreneurs unlock their greatest potential. More than 5,000 business owners applied (about 10X more than anticipated) of which we selected 200 cohorts to participate (double what we originally planned). The entrepreneurs couldn’t have been more engaged, investing 30+ hours over the past four weeks in the evenings after normal work hours. While it is a free event, if participation is the measuring stick, the experience has been quite valuable for all involved.
These are impressive business owners who’ve made it through a rigorous process to be selected. Our partners at Global Startup Ecosystem, who’ve conducted hundreds of live and virtual accelerator programs to date, chose this cohort based on financial success, community impact and business viability.
It’s bittersweet to come to the end of this program. The cohorts have become close, sharing ideas, vulnerabilities and opportunities. The willingness to improve - take concepts and ideas and make them their own is impressive. And while we’re winding down our time together, we are selecting 10 companies to participate in demo day.
Check out the smart, passionate and accomplished executives now. There are so many people overcoming big obstacles and providing value to their communities. That’s how I want to spend my time right now- with entrepreneurs who are imagining a world that will be better post todays crises.
As one of our expert speakers offered, the last economic crisis in the United States helped launch 10 billion-dollar+ companies. We are bound to see a similar outpouring of new success stories post 2020. Why not from Africa - and after spending four weeks with these entrepreneurs, why not from Nigeria?
