Sahara Group Foundation awards over $130,000 to 20 African innovators
By Seun Ibiyemi
The Sahara Group Foundation (SGF), the social impact arm of Sahara Group, has awarded more than USD 130,000 in grants to 20 exceptional African EXTRApreneurs under the 2025 Sahara Impact Fund (SIF) Cohort 4 and the Making A Difference Around Africa (MADAA) initiatives.
For nearly two decades, the Foundation has championed sustainable development across the continent through investments in entrepreneurship, environmental sustainability, innovation, and community-focused projects.
The 2025 editions of the SIF and MADAA programmes were redesigned following insights from previous cycles, which showed a widening gap between early-stage innovation and market entry opportunities in Africa.
The alignment of both programmes aims to create a seamless innovation pipeline that breaks entry barriers, strengthens capacity, and ensures long-term sustainability beyond the grants awarded.
“Our focus goes beyond disbursing grants,” said David Ayinde, Program Supervisor, Sahara Group Foundation, during the Awards and Gala Night.
“We have built a capacity development and business advisory framework that equips our EXTRApreneurs with business intelligence, financial strategy, governance discipline, and commercial readiness to scale their solutions sustainably across African markets.”
Chidilim Menakaya, Director of the Sahara Group Foundation, explained that the redesigned model reinforces the Foundation’s commitment to grooming high-impact innovators.
“By reinventing the Sahara Impact Fund and elevating the MADAA programme, we are closing the loop between discovery, support, and scale.
This integrated approach ensures that promising EXTRApreneurs have a clear, structured, and fully supported route to delivering measurable impact across their communities.”
Dr. Kola Adesina, Executive Director of Sahara Group, urged the beneficiaries to embrace resilience, discipline, and innovation qualities he said were essential for achieving transformative impact and positioning African enterprises for global competitiveness.
Similarly, Ade Odunsi, Executive Director of Sahara Group, challenged the awardees to build unique value propositions. “Sahara started out with the mindset of EXTRApreneurship. Your businesses must continually be reengineered for greater impact through innovation,” he said.
The 2025 programme cycle attracted over 2,000 applications from across Africa. A thorough screening process shortlisted about 300 innovators who participated in an intensive Capacity Building Workshop delivered by Sahara Group experts.
The sessions covered business strategy, sustainability, governance, regulatory compliance, brand positioning, stakeholder management, and legal, financial, and tax advisory processes.
From this pool, 20 high-potential innovators advanced to the Business Advisory Bootcamp and Sahara M.A.D. Den in Lagos, Nigeria, where they were ultimately selected for grant awards.
Recipients of the $10,000 grant include:
Chinwendu Augustina Nweke (Nigeria), Elvis Kadhama (Uganda), Violet Awo Amoabeng (Ghana), Tracey Shiundu (Kenya), Salma Medhat (Egypt), Anita Nsiah Donkor (Ghana), Dr. Sisay Abebe (Ethiopia), Kedumetse Liphi (Botswana), Ernest Mongezi Majenge (South Africa), and Joan Rukundo Nalubega (Uganda).
Recipients of the $5,000 grant include:
Eunice Adewale (Nigeria), Henry Danwawo Lamba (Nigeria), Johnson Obute (Nigeria), Abraham Ugbenja Iborchan (Ghana), and Brian Okeyo (Kenya).
Recipients of the $1,000 grant include:
Jide Ayegbusi (Nigeria), David Ssembajjwe (Uganda), Mojola Ola (Nigeria), Abiodun Quadri (Nigeria), and Fasanya Samuel Akinpelumi (Nigeria).
The Sahara Group Foundation encouraged the public to learn more about its impact programmes by visiting its official website.