FATE Foundation has announced plan to celebrate its 20th anniversary. According to a statement, the enterprise development organisation was founded by Mr. Fola Adeola, the Founder and Pioneer Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, GTBank, to harness the strong entrepreneurial culture of Nigerians by providing business incubation, growth enablement and accelerator support required to fully explore their innovative potential.
It quoted Adeola to have said: “Entrepreneurship is a journey that starts with self but ends with impacting the world. After 20 years, we happy to have helped thousands of Nigerians embark successfully on this Journey.”
The anniversary would culminate with a series of high-level virtual programming in December, including a high-level ecosystem design policy dialogue series, launch of entrepreneurship books and the signature annual celebration programme.
Speaking on the Foundation’s work, its Executive Director, Adenike Adeyemi, said the mission of our organisation is to foster wealth creation by promoting business and entrepreneurial development among Nigerians.
The statement disclosed that in 2000, FATE Foundation started the Aspiring Entrepreneurs Programme (AEP) for young entrepreneurs/startups. This, it stated was immediately followed by the launch of the Emerging Entrepreneurs Programme (EEP) for growing businesses and the establishment of the FATE Consulting unit (now Growth support unit) to provide business support and advisory services for entrepreneurs.
“Two years later, the organisation won the World Bank Business Plan Competition and opened the Port Harcourt Branch to focus on enterprise creation in the Niger-Delta.
“In 2010 an Impact Assessment Study of FATE Alumni indicated that 65 per cent of entrepreneurs supported were still in business and they had created an average of four jobs,” it added.
According to the statement, over the last decade, FATE Foundation has pioneered initiatives that continue to focus on enabling Nigerian entrepreneurs and the ecosystem.
These it listed to include the Institute for Venture Design (IVD) Fellowship in Partnership with the Stanford Center for Design Research; the Annual Policy Dialogue Series on Entrepreneurship; the one-stop virtual resource center for Nigerian entrepreneurs, msmehub.org; the ScaleUp Lab Accelerator programme and the Orange Corners Incubation programme amongst others.
In addition, the organisation stated that it has also published seven research reports on the Nigerian ecosystem and MSMEs, adding that from inception to date, FATE Foundation has supported over 120,000 aspiring and emerging Nigerian entrepreneurs who are spread across Nigeria creating jobs and adding value to the local and national economies.
“A number of these entrepreneurs are very active in the organisation’s vibrant Alumni community.
“Following the impact of COVID-19, the Foundation has successfully pivoted to digital programming and developed resilience building programmes to support entrepreneurs, set up a FATE Philanthropy Coalition for COVID-19 Support Fund and also launched an 8-Part video and podcast series called Journeys in Entrepreneurship.
“These achievements would not have been possible without a committed Board of Directors, the active support of local and international partners and over 1,500 industry leaders, experienced entrepreneurs who volunteer their time as facilitators, mentors and advisors to the organisation’s entrepreneurs.”
