Steve Agbota
In line with its vision to empower female entrepreneurs in Nigeria, Metrowoman Empowerment Foundation has partnered with CreditPRO Business Support Services Ltd, Soar and Heritage to organise the Female Founders Accelerator 2019 event, which will be launched with an SME business conference in Lagos.
The event, which comes up on Saturday, is in commemoration of the global women entrepreneurship day.
A statement by the organisers said the Female Founders Accelerator program is a 12-month program designed to identify, train, mentor and fund the next generation of Nigeria’s female entrepreneurs.
The statement adds: “The program is aimed at further entrenching entrepreneurship in Nigeria by supporting female entrepreneurs for 12 months, within which period they would have stabilised their businesses on the path of growth.
“The Accelerator program is designed to support female small business owners through training, mentorship, internship and funding. Applic ation for the program commenced in October 2019 where female small business owners were required to upload their business plans on the event website. This year event recorded over 300 business plan applications out of which 30 female small business owners with the best business plans will be shortlisted for the 12-month business support program.”
The statement indicated that the 30 shortlisted candidates, who will be announced at the conference will go through class trainings, mentorship and internship acti vities aimed at establishing their businesses.
The statement hinted that the shortlisted female entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to pitch their businesses to a room of potential investors at some point during the support program while Metrowoman Empowerment Foundation will be awarding a grant of N250,000 each to the four most outstanding entrepreneurs after the support programme.