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Africa’s Business Heroes Prize Competition Announces 2022 Winners

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Africa’s Business Heroes

Entrepreneurs hailing from Tanzania, Kenya and Egypt were in the top three following final pitching session in the Grand Finale

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, November 21, 2022/APO Group/ — 

The Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) Prize Competition (www.AfricaBusinessHeroes.org), a philanthropic initiative sponsored by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Philanthropy, announced this year’s winners during a hybrid Grand Finale held in Johannesburg, South Africa that was live broadcasted to a global audience. Elia Timotheo from Tanzania, Tesh Mbaabu from Kenya and Nadia Gamal El Din from Egypt were named first, second and third prize winners, respectively. The first prize winner received a US$300,000 grant to accelerate his business growth further.

The top three Africa’s Business Heroes for 2022 are:

1st – winning $300,000 – Elia Timotheo, Founder and CEO of East Africa Fruits Co. (Tanzania)

2nd – winning $250,000 – Tesh Mbaabu, Co-Founder and CEO of Marketforce Technologies (Kenya)

3rd – winning $150,000 – Nadia Gamal El Din, Founder and CEO of Rahet Bally (Egypt)

“I’d like to thank the ABH team for working with us along the journey, and my fellow Heroes for being there for me. I especially want to bring this victory back to my team as I would not have been where I am now without them. More significantly, the award is meant to demonstrate to my fellow Tanzanians that entrepreneurship is the way forward and that food sustainability is attainable for all young Africans if we have the courage to make things happen,” says Elia Timotheo, Founder and CEO of East Africa Fruits Co., a food distributor that leverages data and technology to create efficiencies for farmers and consumers while reducing food waste.

Tesh Mbaabu was also chosen as the winner of the “People’s Choice” award, which was newly introduced this year to encourage audiences to support their favorite Hero among the top ten finalists through online voting.

“The winners of the 2022 Africa’s Business Heroes competition embody the incredible entrepreneurial spirit in the region. The judges recognized them for their leadership, passion, and ability to drive positive impact across Africa through their businesses. Despite the unprecedented challenges of the past two years, these entrepreneurs have inspired us all with their resilience and unwavering commitment to their businesses and communities,” said Jason Pau, Executive Director of International Programs, Jack Ma Foundation.

The finalists other than the top three will each receive US$100,000 in prize funding, and an additional US$10,000 will be allocated to each of the top ten finalists for immersive training program(s) and community gathering activities.

Despite the unprecedented challenges of the past two years, these entrepreneurs have inspired us all with their resilience and unwavering commitment to their businesses

The ten finalists of this year’s competition were chosen from an initial pool of over 21,000 applications from all 54 African countries after six months’ rigorous evaluation by over 300 judges.

Over 7,000 viewers from across the globe watched the Grand Finale live online, following the finalists as they pitched their businesses to a final panel of esteemed judges: Ibukun Awosika, Founder and CEO of The Chair Centre Group, Victor Williams, CEO of NBA Africa, and Joe Tsai, Executive Vice Chairman of Alibaba Group.

The Grand Finale judges were impressed with the caliber of the finalists and their businesses, commenting:

“Congratulations to all the finalists and winners of this year’s ABH competition. Once again, I am privileged to take part in the judging panel and to be able to put a spotlight on the important work being done by trailblazing entrepreneurs on the African continent. We hope to see the businesses of these outstanding entrepreneurs flourish into bigger and better enterprises that will stimulate socio-economic development beyond their local markets,” said Ibukun Awosika, Founder and CEO of The Chair Centre Group.

“Congratulations to all the finalists and the winners of this year’s ABH competition. Entrepreneurship is more than just building a successful business; it takes true grit and passion to create and seize opportunities where they don’t always exist. These exceptional entrepreneurs are all worthy winners and I’m excited to see how they will continue to drive progress in their respective markets, and across the African continent,” said Victor Williams, CEO of NBA Africa.

“The ABH competition is an incredible opportunity to see the vigorous entrepreneurship taking place on the African continent. This year’s winners are role models of entrepreneurship from the standpoint of changing people’s lives and creating opportunities for people to transform society with the use of technology. We believe their contribution will be huge if they can inspire more entrepreneurialism across the continent,” said Joe Tsai, Executive Vice Chairman of Alibaba Group.

The Africa’s Business Heroes Prize Competition aims to help foster an inclusive and vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in Africa. The annual competition, now in its fourth year, shines a spotlight on talented African entrepreneurs working to make a difference in their communities and helping build a more sustainable, inclusive future. The ABH competition is grassroots oriented as well as age, gender and sector agnostic.

This year’s official competition slogan, “It’s African Time,” was a bold call to action for talented African entrepreneurs to redefine stereotypes associated with “African time” as creating local impact and building a better, more inclusive future through their businesses.

The latest edition of Africa’s Business Heroes TV show will air in 2023. The show will follow the finalists in their exciting journey to the 2022 ABH Grand Finale and features their on-stage pitches and behind-the-scenes moments from the Competition. The full video playback of the 2022 ABH Grand Finale is currently available on ABH’s official YouTube (https://bit.ly/3hTqFA5) channel.

Pre-registration for the 2023 ABH prize will open in December 2022 and the 2023 ABH application will open in early 2023. 

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH).

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AFRICLOUD Opens Lagos Region and Local-Currency Payments in African Markets

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September 23, 2026

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The company’s third African region keeps Nigerian workloads in Nigeria, and customers from Abidjan to Nairobi can now pay in the currency they earn, without an international card

MIAMI BEACH, United States of America, September 23, 2026/APO Group/ –AFRICLOUD (https://AFRICLOUD.com), a cloud infrastructure company, has opened its third African region in Lagos and now accepts payment in local currency across West, Central, East and Southern Africa. Businesses across the continent can run servers in Nigeria, South Africa or Portugal from one account, and pay for them the way they already pay for everything else.

 




  

Download document (1): https://apo-opa.co/4Ardfz9

Download document (2): https://apo-opa.co/46FWH8Y

Buying cloud infrastructure in Africa has meant living with three compromises: traffic that leaves the continent and comes back, payment in dollars behind a card many businesses do not hold, and data sitting under somebody else’s law.

Lagos answers the first. Compute and storage for Nigerian customers stay in Nigeria, and the region also serves Accra, Abidjan, Lome, Douala and Ouagadougou. Traffic from landlocked West Africa that once reached comparable infrastructure by way of Europe now stays on terrestrial West African fibre. Johannesburg serves Southern and East Africa. Lisbon serves North Africa and Europe, and reaches Brazil over a direct subsea route. Across the three regions, AFRICLOUD’s own continent-wide measurements place 42 of the 53 African countries measured within a best-case round trip of 70 milliseconds, countries home to about 1.28 billion people.

A company in Accra or Abidjan now reaches West African infrastructure without leaving the region, and pays for it in the currency it earns

Payment answers the second. Customers across West, Central, East and Southern Africa pay in their own currency, including the naira, the cedi, the shilling and the CFA francs, by local card, bank transfer, USSD or mobile money, with no international card needed. Mobile money is live in twelve African countries, and cards, PayPal and more than 300 cryptocurrencies are accepted everywhere. The GSMA reports that 74 per cent of the world’s mobile money activity by transaction count took place in Africa in 2024.

Residency answers the third. Nigerian data runs under the Nigeria Data Protection Act, South African data under POPIA and European workloads under EU law, chosen server by server from the same dashboard.

“African businesses have been asked to choose between infrastructure that is close, infrastructure they can actually pay for, and infrastructure that keeps their data under their own law,” said Oluniyi Ajao, Founder of AFRICLOUD. “Removing that choice is the reason we built this.”

“Lagos is the piece that completes the map,” he said. “A company in Accra or Abidjan now reaches West African infrastructure without leaving the region, and pays for it in the currency it earns.”

All three regions run the same platform: AMD EPYC processors with all-NVMe storage, IPv4 and IPv6 on every server, and a new server online in about two minutes. Dedicated Servers are built to order in all three regions. Support is available around the clock by chat and email.

Cloud Servers are available now at https://AFRICLOUD.com.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of AFRICLOUD LLC.

 

 




 

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Hong Kong outlines strategies for deepening development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and enhancing green transformation

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September 23, 2026

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HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 22 September 2026 – Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee announced the First Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) (2026-2030) and his fifth Policy Address on September 16, rolling out measures to further sharpen Hong Kong’s edge amid global competition, consolidate development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and promote green transformation.

Initiatives aim to support high-quality development of the GBA, align rules and mechanisms within the region, and promote cross-boundary collaboration.

 




 
 

“The HKSAR Government will continue its efforts in fostering synergistic development of the GBA,” said Mr Lee. “We will strengthen co‑operation in technological innovation, promote ‘hard connectivity’ in infrastructure, foster ‘soft connectivity’ by deepening the alignment of rules and mechanisms, and achieve ‘connectivity of hearts’ among residents of the three places.”

The HKSAR Government will continue to actively participate in the development of the various major co-operation platforms, including Qianhai of Shenzhen, Nansha of Guangzhou, Hengqin of Zhuhai and the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Co-operation Zone, to promote mutual benefits.

In terms of “hard connectivity” the HKSAR Government will support Nansha in its role as a high‑standard gateway for opening up, including encouraging the trade to participate in Nansha’s infrastructure development.

“To promote the co‑ordinated development of rail transit in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, we are pressing ahead with the Northern Link Project and the Hong Kong‑Shenzhen Western Rail Link (Hung Shui Kiu‑Qianhai), with target commissioning in 2034 and 2035 respectively, to fully connect the rail transit networks of Hong Kong and Shenzhen,” Mr Lee said.

Regarding “soft connectivity”, Mr Lee said the HKSAR Government will set up a Task Force to explore ways to advance the alignment of rules and mechanisms within the GBA.

To achieve “Connectivity of Hearts” among residents across the GBA, Hong Kong will strengthen co-operation between its higher education institutions and those in other GBA cities by establishing cross‑disciplinary partnerships, facilitating scientific research, knowledge transfer, and commercialisation, with a view to promoting high‑level research.

Hong Kong’s Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Janice Tse, noted that the First Five-Year Plan clearly states that Hong Kong will participate in the development of the GBA into an international first‑class bay area and a world‑class city cluster with global influence.

“Hong Kong will forge closer alignment and synergy with the nine GBA cities in Guangdong Province and Macao, making full use of our respective advantages to jointly promote the high-quality development of the GBA,” Miss Tse said.

To foster financial development in the GBA, Hong Kong will continue to capitalise on institutional innovation, financial infrastructure upgrading and enhanced regulatory alignment to encourage the orderly flow of financial elements among GBA cities.

The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited’s Core Climate, in collaboration with the Guangzhou Power Exchange Centre, is working towards the pilot trading of national renewable‑energy, green electricity certificates in Hong Kong in 2026.

“On connecting the Chinese Mainland and the world, the HKSAR Government will continue to support green technology development through the HK$400 million (aboutUS$51 million) Green Tech Fund, leveraging Hong Kong’s function as a springboard for green technology and assisting national green technologies and products in going global,” said Hong Kong’sSecretary for Environment and Ecology, Tse Chin-wan. “On the development of hydrogen energy, we have participated in drafting national hydrogen energy standards with a view to helping these standards align with international practice.”

To meet the country’s “dual carbon” targets and fulfil Hong Kong’s commitment to achieving carbon neutrality before 2050, the HKSAR Government steered the establishment of a production base for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in Dongguan, leveraging the leading position of Hong Kong enterprises in the international SAF industry.

“By combining technology strengths with industrial foundation, Hong Kong and Guangdong will jointly develop a globally influential green industry,” Mr Lee said.

The HKSAR Government will take forward the construction of an SAF blending facility in Hong Kong to build an end‑to‑end SAF value chain and reduce logistics costs to make SAF prices more competitive. The target is to achieve an SAF consumption ratio of 1% to 3% for flights departing from Hong Kong International Airport in 2030.

Hong Kong’s Five-Year Plan promotes the integrated development of culture, sports, and tourism, to develop the GBA into a cultured bay area.

Under the strategic framework of the Agreement on Strengthening of Sports Cooperation and Promotion of Integrated Development, Hong Kong will deepen co-operation, and strive to co‑organise important regional and international single‑sport events. It will also strengthen cultural exchanges, pass on Cantonese opera and the characteristics of Lingnan culture, and promote the sales and cross‑boundary exhibition of Hong Kong publications.
 




 

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Alamein Africa Forum to bring together key political and business leaders

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12 hours ago

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September 23, 2026

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The forum is to become the continent’s premier gathering where political power meets entrepreneurial prowess, bridging the established engines of African growth with the new sectors defining its future

CAIRO, Egypt, September 22, 2026/APO Group/ –The inaugural Alamein Africa Forum (https://AlameinForum.com/) will take place from October 2-4 in the historic city of Alamein on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast in parallel with the 2026 African Union mid-year summit.

Established in response to a mandate from the African Union, which called for a permanent African Business Forum to convene biennially in Egypt, the inaugural edition will bring together Heads of State and official delegations as well as some key actors in business and finance.
 




 

The forum is to become the continent’s premier gathering where political power meets entrepreneurial prowess, bridging the established engines of African growth with the new sectors defining its future.

The Alamein Africa Forum will serve as a pan-African platform bringing together the private sector, investment and financial institutions

The Presidents of Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Libya, Senegal, Somalia, and South Africa are expected in Alamein as well as President Al Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt who is the host of this year’s AU Mid-Year Summit. Business leaders from across the continent have confirmed their participation including Ralph Mupita, MTN; Idrissa Nassa, Coris Bank; Mohamed El Ketani, Attijariwafa Bank; Hichem Eloumi, Groupe Shakira; Wale Tinubu, Oando; and many more. Aliko Dangote, Africa’s biggest industrialist is also expected to attend, with the organisers hoping to set up a Business Advisory Council to help advance private sector priorities and investment throughout the continent.

Bringing together leaders in politics, business and policy from across the continent, the Alamein Africa Forum will provide a unique opportunity to shape Africa’s growth agenda by aligning policy and investment priorities, mobilising partnerships for implementation and strengthening financing and investment pathways. The private sector must become an integral part of Agenda 2063, the AU’s strategic 50 year masterplan to transform the continent.

Co-organised by the Government of Egypt, Afreximbank, the African Union and AUDA-NEPAD, the Forum brings together Africa’s most influential decision-makers in an unprecedented alliance of public and private sector leadership.

Speaking on the imperative of the summit at a joint press conference by the government of Egypt and Afreximbank on Thursday, September 17 2026, Dr. Badr Abdelatty, Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, and Expatriates Abroad said (https://apo-opa.co/4ygiQag): “The Alamein Africa Forum will serve as a pan-African platform bringing together the private sector, investment and financial institutions, and representatives of various productive and service sectors, to strengthen direct links between companies and markets and decision making at the highest level.”

Continuing, he noted that the Alamein Africa Forum is part of a series of high-level African events that Egypt will host in early October, stressing that holding the forum reflects Egypt’s commitment to advancing continental economic cooperation

In his own comments, Dr. George Elombi, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank described (https://apo-opa.co/4ygiQag) the Alamein Africa Forum as a pan-African platform for promoting intra-African trade and investment and connecting the business community and financial institutions with priority projects and investment opportunities in the continent.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Alamein Africa Forum.

 




 

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