As part of its mandate to empower female entrepreneurs in Africa, Access Bank has unveiled the third edition of its Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton Africa program. The program is designed to provide female owned businesses across Africa an opportunity to access finance, business trainings and mentoring opportunities.
In 2020, Access Bank was able to expand the program to other female entrepreneurs across 7 African countries with 3 winners emerging from Sierra Leone, Ghana and Zambia out of 50 finalists. This year, the program will be bigger, with up to 100 women entrepreneurs who will emerge as finalists.
Speaking at the launch of the third edition of the initiative, Ayona Trimnell, Group Head W Initiative, said, “Access Bank has been a leading advocate for women’s economic empowerment in Africa and this is the key motivation for the ‘W’ Initiative which caters to
the women economy particularly in the areas of financing, capacity building and creating networking opportunities for women”.
The program is available to women in 9 African countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, Rwanda, Mozambique, South Africa, DRC, Sierra Leone and the Gambia.
All interested applicants must have;
- An existing business for at least one year with at least 50% female ownership.
- Be between the age range of 18-45 years
All online applications will be reviewed and screened by independent business experts who will then select the final top 100 candidates to benefit from an exclusive and certified Mini-MBA and grant prizes.
“The program is designed as a 3-month period comprising 12 weeks of mini-MBA training in collaboration with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and pitching sessions to a Pan-African Jury panel. The top 100 finalists will pitch their businesses, infusing learnings from the mini-MBA and will stand an opportunity to win financial grants and other consolation prizes,” concluded Ayona.
Application closes August 13, 2021