Jack Ma initiates funding program for African entrepreneurs

Jack Ma, chairman of the Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant Alibaba, gives a speech at the "Netpreneurs: The Rise of Africa's Digital Lions" conference in Johannesburg, South Africa in August 2018. He announced to launch a funding program for African entrepreneurs in his speech. [Photo/people.cn]

Jack Ma, co-founder and chairman of Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, and a prominent figure in China's digital economy, will provide $10 million in the coming 10 years to support young Africans.

Netpreneur Prize, an African entrepreneurs funding program, was launched on Feb 18 to foster and develop entrepreneurial talents in Africa.

Over the following decade, the program will organize a startup competition each year to select potential African entrepreneurs. The competitions will be open to all young people from African countries with great business ideas and finalists will get $1 million a year from the funding program.

In addition to the financial support, finalists of the competitions will also be included into a community of African business leaders where they can get guidance and other resources, thanks to the cooperation between Netpreneur Prize and the African startup incubator Nailab.

"We hope to find 100 excellent young entrepreneurs in Africa by 2030 and encourage them to develop and serve the continent," said a staff member of the program.

This year's competition will launch applications on March 27 and the final is scheduled to take place in November.

The prize was announced last August at the "Netpreneurs: The Rise of Africa's Digital Lions" conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Ma said he will help young Africans realize their dreams and help Africa cultivate 100 companies like Alibaba.

Since his first visit to the continent in 2017, Ma has forged close bonds with Africa. To date, Alibaba has offered training courses for officers, entrepreneurs and university teachers from 14 African countries and the group joined hands with Rwanda in launching Africa's first electronic world trade platform (eWTP) in October 2018.