WINNERS emerge at 2012 Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship
0The African Leadership Network, the membership network of new generation leaders in Africa, and Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm, has announced the winners of 2012 Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship.
La Laiterie du Berger won the Outstanding Small and Growing Business Award- a prize of US$50 000 to a young, remarkable African business with revenue between $ 0.5M and $ 5M. The company is a Senegalese dairy company that sources and processes milk from semi-nomadic Fulani pastoralists living along the Senegal River.
Secure ID won the Mature Business Award- a $ 100,000 prize to a business leader who has built a company with revenues between $ 5M to $ 50M. SecureID is Nigeria’s foremost Smart Card manufacturing company. It is the leading Europay, MasterCard and Visa – certified card plant in West Africa, one out of only six on the continent and a member of the elite club of only 80 such companies in the world.
Quality Chemicals Industries Ltd. (QCIL) won the Transformational Business Award- Citation and trophy awarded to notable business leader who has had a major socio-economic impact in Africa by building a business with revenues greater than US$ 50M. QCIL is a leading sciences and distribution company that locally manufactures anti-malarial and antiretroviral drugs to combat two of Africa’s greatest challenges malaria and HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Richard John Pelwana Maponya was announced as the winner of 2012 Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship Lifetime Achievement Award. The award captured Maponya’s achievements in his seven-decade career in entrepreneurship, and consolidates his distinction as an iconic African entrepreneur.
During his acceptance speech at the awards, Maponya said “At the time I started my first business in the 1950s, it was difficult for a young African to dream of political freedom, let alone entrepreneurial success”.
“Dr. Maponya is a hugely inspiring businessman who has served as a beacon for different generations of entrepreneurs over the last seven decades,” comments Fred Swaniker, CEO and Co-Founder of the African Leadership Network.
