Though tiphub was launched in February of 2014, co-founder Chinedu Enekwe spoke confidently about the accelerator’s reach and ultimate agenda. By targeting African entrepreneurs — on the continent and across the African diaspora — and ideas which benefit the continent, tiphub seeks to be the conduit between African inventors and the resources that will aid them in achieving an impressive end goal — like creating an app, startup or service.
Unlike other accelerator or incubation programs for African entrepreneurs, Enekwe says tiphub is different because of the company’s foundation, which is driven by social enterprise.
Establishing a Sustainable Foundation
The often noted sustainability component of this accelerator comes from a consulting businesses within tiphub that offers solutions in tech, web and mobile applications, which then, “sells enterprise solutions to companies and builds them,” Enekwe told AFKInsider. “We have a sustainable business model that creates a continual pool of cash that we invest as capital. Later on we’ll be accepting investor capital, but right now we’re co-investing with investors.”
This past summer, tiphub launched its African Access Academy, a weekend workshop program that took place over the span of two weeks — virtually and in-house at the accelerator’s headquarters, located within downtown Washington D.C.’s Impact Hub. The classes, which introduced entrepreneurs to mentors, investors and business peers did essentially what tiphub does as a whole, but in the form of crash courses.
“We put it out there that we’re doing this and we received an overwhelming response from people within the states and all over the world. So what we decided to do is enable people to have access to it virtually, on demand and on a running platform,” Enekwe said about the African Access Academy.
“Our focus is technical assistance in training to make sure that the entrepreneurs are ready to capture the opportunities that they see, and that they’re passionate in addressing them. African Access Academy is basically tailored to equip entrepreneurs with the tools necessary to do that in terms of knowledge, access to resources and instructors.”
Rooted In Africa
Enekwe’s passion for linking others with resources stems from his professional background in engineering, investment banking and law. Aside from having worked on the continent, Enekwe and his co-founders are tied to investment, power and education programs which have been rolled out in Africa.
