Olowo John of OhRich Nigeria has emerged winner of the 2020 Aspiring Entrepreneurs Programme (AEP) for Nigerian Agribusiness entrepreneurs organised by FATE Foundation, in collaboration with Mitsubishi Corporation Nigeria Limited.
Olowo John received a prize of ₦500,000, followed by Ante Joseph of Maatalous Nasah who came in second and got ₦200,000 and Ronke Aderinoye of Agrinerve Ventures who came in third and won ₦150,000.
The AEP promotes access to finance and enhances financial inclusion, two key elements in business and economic growth.
The business pitch competition targeted at the youth between 18 and 35 enabled competing entrepreneurs to pitch their business to an expert jury comprising Mrs. Yemisi Obe (the Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the programme), Uyi Ima Edomwonyi and Sherif Ibrahim.
The jury reviewed the businesses pitches in key areas such as market strategy, business model, innovation and viability potential.
The programme was launched last year through a grant support from Mitsubishi Corporation’s International Contributions programme and enabled FATE Foundation support 40 early stage agribusiness startups with information and knowledge to grow and build viable businesses.
The Foundation provided beneficiaries with training, mentoring, advisory, registration of their business entitles and business model guidance.
The Managing Director, Mitsubishi Corporation Nigeria Limited, Makoto Saito, stated:
“The AEP agribusiness programme is one of the many social philanthropy activities of Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) aimed at contributing to the social economic development of the communities and regions where MC operates in response to their needs.
One of the focus is capacity building through nurturing, preparing and empowering the next generation to enhance skills to become self-reliant.
It has become important to transition agribusiness ideas into viable models and solutions to enhance yield and efficiency across the agribusiness value chain to aid income generation, improve quality of life and overcome the devastating impact of COVID 19.”
Also, the Executive Director, FATE Foundation, Adenike Adeyemi, congratulated the winners, stating:
“The Aspiring Entrepreneurs Programme: Agribusiness provides a unique opportunity to young agribusiness entrepreneurs and we are proud of the success of the programme and the achievement of the entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs have proven to be resilient, socially impactful and innovative, by developing sustainable solutions pre-and during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
She further stated that the two organisations were proud of the partnership, which has shown how investing time, resources and knowledge in innovative young Nigerians in high growth sectors such as agribusiness are important in empowering the next generation to create wealth, jobs and add significant socio-economic value and look forward to collaborating more to supporting more young entrepreneurs across Nigeria.
