The Westerwelle Young Founders’ programme as the name implies is a program organized for founding entrepreneurs to scale off their businesses. It is a six-month programme that would offer business pitching, clarity and all-round mentoring to outstanding young founders and entrepreneurs from developing and emerging countries.
The year 2020 edition came with an open application to all amongst which over 25 participants qualified all over, 12 from a number of African countries including 3 Nigerians.
Outline of the programme include:
- Young Founders’ Conference which has held in Benin last two weeks.
- Monthly peer-mentoring calls.
- Monthly expert sessions and online seminars.
- Personal mentors for each participant for effective grooming.
The 3 young Nigerian entrepreneurs who made their way to the stage are Damilola Emuze, co-founder and COO of ScholarX; Jide Ayegbusi, founder and CEO of Edusko.com; and Luther Lawoyin who is the founder and CEO of Pricepally.com.
About the three entrepreneurs
Damilola Emuze is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of ScholarX, an Edtech startup based in Lagos. It was founded in 2016. ScholarX aims to create better access to quality education for aspiring youths in Africa irrespective of their socio-economic background.
ScholarX uses its education financing solutions to provide students and youths available funding opportunities thereby ensuring access to quality education.
ScholarX participated in Google Launchpad Accelerator Class 3 and was one of 6 Startups Selected to Pitch at the Stanford Africa Business Forum. It won the World Summit Award for Education in Nigeria in 2017.
Jide Ayegbusi is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Edusko.com, an edtech startup based in Lagos. It came into existence in 2016. Edusko is a startup that focuses on helping African parents access suitable schools and financing offline online to give their children access to quality education.
Edusko has a web-based application which allows for parents to compare good schools, good facilities and altogether make informed decisions on their prefered choice of school. It also provides access to finance to pay for school fees.
Edusko was a finalist at the Seedstars World event in Lagos, Nigeria in 2019. It was selected as one of the five startups by the Nigerian Economy Summit Group in 2017.
Luther Lawoyin is the newest founder of the three. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Pricepally.com, an e-commerce company based in Lagos. It was founded in 2019. Pricepally is a platform that provides access to affordable, nutritious, traceable and secures raw food items.
The startup offers wholesale services that enable people to buy food in bulk. It also allows sharing of bulk food items with others online to leverage their collective bargaining power.
Pricepally participated in the French-German AyadaLab incubator and accelerator programme. It has also been part of the venture scaling boot camp at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.
Pricepally won Foodtech500 global company by Forward Fooding.
