CI Webinar Series: Ndidi Nwuneli, Serial social entrepreneur, Founder of LEAP Africa

Food Entrepreneurs For Scaling Resilient Agriculture Businesses and Digital Empowerment

Real-Life Cases from Africa and Insights for a Post-Covid 19 World Reset to Convergence Economy

Ndidi Nwuneli, MBA

Serial social entrepreneur, Founder of LEAP Africa

Ndidi Nwuneli is a serial social entrepreneur based in Nigeria. She is the founder of LEAP Africa, co-founder of AACE Foods, director at Sahel Capital and in 2015, she was a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government, Harvard Kennedy School, USA. She is also the founder and chair of Nourishing Africa, a digital knowledge, financing and data hub which is enabling agribusiness entrepreneurs in 34 African countries to scale. Ndidi holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate degree with honours from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Ndidi was recognized as a Young Global Leader and Schwab Social Innovator by the World Economic Forum and received a National Honor from the Nigerian Government. Ndidi is a TED Global speaker and is the author of “Social Innovation in Africa: A Practical Guide for Scaling Impact."

Abstract

Entrepreneurs are and have been the lifeblood of economic development since the onset of the first industrial revolution. More recently, social and institutional entrepreneurs have joined their commercial counterparts in moving toward sustainable prosperity for all, with farmers from around the world also seeing themselves as being at the same time stewards of their share of nature and business men/women. This talk focuses on entrepreneurs in the agriculture and food sector in Africa, where the sector is projected to exceed trillion dollars by 2030. Ndidi Nwuneli will lay out the required building blocks for achieving scale at impact, a framework based on real-time analysis and support to a rich portfolio of enterprises. She will discuss how the current Covid-19 pandemic, accelerating digital transformation of farms, businesses and societies, may help rolling out business models that are demand-driven, simple, and low-cost, with compelling measurement and evaluation tools that leverage technology. She will also explore crucial steps for attracting and retaining talent and financing and forming strategic partnerships with the private, public and non-profit sectors, outlining essential stages needed to create an enabling environment for the scaling of high-impact initiatives and advancing collective efforts to build stronger communities for current and future generations. Her book, Food Entrepreneurs in Africa: Scaling Resilient Agriculture Businesses, is launched on March 22 (registration). Insights will be derived for a post-COVID 19 reset on convergence economy, including pathways through which a worldwide network of digital entrepreneurs in partnership with innovators in farm, food, health, medical, transportation, energy, and others, can catalyze world-scale transformation.

Chair: Laurette Dubé (Scientific Director of MCCHE)
Co-Chair & Moderator: John G. Keogh (Managing Principal, Shantalla Inc. Toronto )
Special Panel: Going beyond what has been possible thus far in nutrition for all through human-centred and digital-powered convergence economy approach: pulses and produces as entry point