By Victor Gotevbe, Editor-in-Chief
All roads will lead to Radisson blu hotel in Lagos, Nigeria on Thursday, January 24, 2019 for the launch of the Africa Ashoka Hub. The event will bring together an array of Social Entrepreneurs, Professionals, Corporate heads, Civil Society Leaders and the Media.
Ashoka is an international network of social entrepreneurs driving a new vision that builds and cultivates a community of change leaders who see that the world now requires everyone to be a changemaker. It collaborates with others to transform institutions and cultures globally so they support change making for the good of the community.
Speaking at a press conference organized by Ashoka Nigeria, Mrs. Josephine Nzerem, an Ashoka Fellow and Director/Venture & Fellowship, Ashoka Africa told journalists that Ashoka supports an “Everyone a Changemaker” world through its programs in more than 90 countries. There are over 3500 fellows across the globe.
She expressed that Ashoka Africa has a series of activities executed in a four phase approach, namely, curating innovations; championing individuals and institutions to grow their capacity; challenging partners to build collective impact; and convening innovations to spread awareness.
Josephine Nzerem added that Ashoka Africa presently has four hubs in four cities across Africa. That is, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Dakar and Lagos.
“Nigeria is a creative and entrepreneurial powerhouse, an emerging/frontier market, a global fashion capital and home to over some 200 million of the happiest and most optimistic people in the world and it is in this regard that we decided to bring the Africa hub to Nigeria. Nigeria has the largest number of indigenous entrepreneurs than as many of the startups are led by Nigerians. We haven’t allowed our culture to be eroded and we welcome people” She said.
Ashoka Nigeria has elected 90 fellows. It has a robust data capturing the fellows’ impact, what they are doing and how they have touched lives.
