Uganda’s Prime Minister, Rt. Hon.Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda is expected to speak at this year’s Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Foundation (TEF) forum in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.

TEF is the brainchild of UBA Group Chairman Mr. Tony Elumelu, with the vision of empowering 100,000 African Entrepreneurs on the African Continent through his foundation.

This year’s forum taking place at the iconic Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja, held under the theme; “Empowering African Entrepreneurs,” exposes African Entrepreneurs to UBA special products and services that will support their business and personal development.

The forum, now in its fifth year will feature masterclasses, a dynamic pitching competition, electrifying panel debates, and the Presidential Dialogue. It will engage an audience of 5,000 comprising of startup entrepreneurs, development institutions and policymakers.

The two day forum, which was launched on Friday, July 26 and will end on 27th July, brings together over African Entrepreneurs from across the African Continent on an all-expenses paid trip to sell their goods and products to over 5,000 guests at the largest gathering of African Entrepreneurs, policymakers and business leaders in one location.

On Saturday, African leaders including; Uganda’s Prime Minister, Rugunda, Felix Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Peoples Reublic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Macky Sall of Senegal and Nigeria’s Muhammud Buhari will speak at the president’s forum. Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of AFDB will also speak at the forum.

Happening on the sidelines of the forum is the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Marketplace.

The UBA Marketplace is an online store that has been made physical to pre-launch the TED forum.

As part of the activities, the event is also playing host to businesses and business owners in various industries including food, fashion, beauty, home/interior and gadgets.

Through the UBA Marketplace, the foundation hopes to connect over one thousand businesses on the continent to boost intra African trade through this summit that brings together Afrian entrepreneurs, dignitaries and business owners to share ideas on the growth of the African economy.

Inspired by Tony Elumelu’s economic philosophy of Africapitalism and his vision to institutionalise luck and democratise opportunity for a new generation of African entrepreneurs, the Foundation has implemented one of the most ambitious entrepreneurship programmes globally. Selected entrepreneurs from previous years have transformed their businesses and their communities after gaining from the Programme’s 7 pillars: $5,000 in seed capital; business development training; one-on-one mentoring; access to TEFConnect; pan-African meetups; TEF network