By Chika Amanze-Nwachuku
Excitement is growing across Africa as Access Bank has kicked off the Season four of its yearly Womenpreneur Pitch-a-Ton Africa programme. Twenty seven (27) winners will emerge in this year’s edition.
Launched in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, in line with the Bank’s value proposition to be the No. 1 Bank of Choice for women in Nigeria, the programme has since provided mini-MBA to 200 women entrepreneurs across Africa.
CEO, Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe
The maiden edition of 2019, held in conjunction with the International Finance Corporation (IFC, a member of the World Bank Group), provided financial grants worth N5million to the top five applicants with a free mini MBA certification for 50 women entrepreneurs in Nigeria.
In 2020, despite the pandemic, the Bank was able to expand the programme to other female entrepreneurs across seven African countries with three winners emerging from Sierra Leone, Ghana and Zambia out of 50 finalists.
The 2021 (Season 3) edition was further expanded to a total of nine African countries – Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and the Gambia”.
The 2021 Womenpreneur Pitch-a-Ton Africa programme offered financial grants, an exclusive certified capacity building programme and business coaching aimed at empowering women entrepreneurs.
The 2022 Season 4 Edition
The Season 4 of the Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton Africa programme, which opened on July 13, will close on August 19.
Already, Access Bank has started receiving applications from interested women entrepreneurs across Africa for this year’s edition of the programme.
Mrs Abiodun Olubitan, the Group Head, W Initiative, Access Bank Group, stated at a media roundtable for the unveiling of the Season 4 of the programme that the competition is open to Nigerian business owners from age 18 to 55, whose businesses are legal and registered in Nigeria.
She explained that the Womenpreneur Pitch-a-Ton Africa programme “is designed to provide female owned businesses across Africa an opportunity to access finance, world-class business trainings as well as mentoring opportunities.”
According to her, the initiative was introduced as part of Access Bank’s mandate to empower female entrepreneurs with financial and business skills.
Olubitan, who spoke on the theme: “Empowering Women for Global Impact,” said the initiative was designed to create an enabling environment for female entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.
She added: “We have just opened for application and for this year, we are going to be having 27 winners.
“Top seven are going to be winning financial grants up to five million naira and the additional 20 will be consolation prizes which would include free website development, free advertisement as well for their business.
“This is just to ensure that it’s not one winner takes it all. Everybody is a winner. “So, this year’s competition is going to be different. We started in 2019 and we have had it every year till this year.”
Olubitan further stated that the bank was expecting 40,000 applications as against 30,000 received last year, noting that four thousand applications have been received since it opened.
She explained that those who had applied and were not lucky to be selected as one of the top 100, would be harvested into the W Community.
According to her, they will have free access to several information as well as use the toolkit in there, to train themselves.
She noted that the Season four would have Nigeria standing on its own while the other African countries would coordinate programmes from their own markets as well.
Olubitan said they would localise the content, make it relatable for the women entrepreneurs in their own markets and also have opportunities to add extra rewards.
She said that cash prizes, consolation prizes, including non-financial prizes such as insurance packages, three virtual business loans, investors matching opportunities and other opportunities would abound in this year’s competition.
She further noted that the season four competition would create a global impact as it would produce 400 mini MBA winners, as against the 200 winners achieved in the past three years.
Olubitan said the mini MBA was an intensive training programme developed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to train women on the rudiments of business.
She added: “So just look at that exponential growth that we are going to have in this year alone because we are opening it up to the countries to set it off themselves.
“And in addition, we are going to have 40 more winners in terms of the cash prizes and non-financial prizes.”
Huge Benefits of the Programme to Nigeria, Africa
The competition had produced 200 winners across the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. Also, 10 other African countries had produced 13 grant winners and 10 other consolation prizes across Africa.
Besides, Olubitan said the programme had exposed women to international markets and access to exhibit their products in many countries.
She said that through the competition, the Access Bank had been able to contribute directly and meaningfully to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“Because as you’re empowering the women, they’re increasing their business capacity, they’re able to replicate what they’re doing.
“So, these are the impacts that we see that actually propelled us, apart from the fact that it’s profitable’’, she stressed.
Olubitan also disclosed that the bank had given grants worth $55,000 to winners since inception of the initiative.
She stated that interested entrepreneurs who meet the criteria should follow @W Community or Instagram, Twitter and facebook log on to www.womenpreneur.ng to apply.