To round up 2024, African Diaspora Network (ADN) hosted our Year-In-Review webinar to bring together our community to celebrate our milestones and impact and envision together what 2025 and beyond would bring. The just over an hour long session featured reflections, experiences and future plans from ADN team members, members of ADN’s board, and 3 alumni from ADN’s enterprise accelerator programs.
Featured Speakers:
- Almaz Negash, CEO, African Diaspora Network
- Omolayo Nkem Oyudo, Director of Programs and Operations, African Diaspora Network
- Josh Ghaim Ph.D., Founder and Managing Partner, Ignite Venture Studio; Board Chairman, African Diaspora Network
- Rick Levenson, CTO, Rippleworks, Board Member, African Diaspora Network
- Christopher “Chris” Bennett, JD, MBA, ABLE 2023 Alum, Founder of T-I-L(R)
- Sr. Rose Thumitho, SYSE 2022 Alum, Co-founder of Mother Kevin Providence Social Enterprise
- Mathias Charles Yabe, BAF 2023 Alum, Founder and CEO, AkoFresh
The purpose of the event was to thank our audience for being a vital part of the ADN network, provide a review of what we’ve done so far this year, and share about our plans for 2025.
After Almaz welcomed the audience, she interviewed Rick, Josh and Omolayo on ADN’s impact this year, the partnerships we’ve forged, how we’ve grown the community, how we’ve been able to do this work with limited resources and what plans we had for the future and how people could get involved. The three of them reflected on the amazing work accomplished this year including supporting 45 entrepreneurs as part of our accelerator programs, launching our 5-Year Strategic Plan, pulling off a successful African Diaspora Investment Symposium (ADIS) – including awarding $10,000 as part of our very first ADIS Pitch Competition, and impactful partnerships such as our UNGA event co-hosted with Myriad and the National Basketball Players Association. This led into discussing some more exciting ventures as we look to 2025, including a deepened partnership with Myriad and others to continue mobilising the diaspora Beyond Remittances.
“We want the diaspora to invest in their communities, and on the continent. Everything else will follow.” - Josh Ghaim
Impact of ADN’s Programs & Advice for Entrepreneurs
We then moved on to hearing directly from the entrepreneurs impacted by ADN’s programs – alumnus of ADN’s enterprise accelerators. This portion was moderated by Omolayo who asked them to share about their key takeaways from the programs they graduated from, how that continued to impact their lives and businesses, what business goals they had for their future and how the community could support them as entrepreneurs. They concluded by sharing their advice for other entrepreneurs, even if they hadn’t been part of ADN’s accelerator programs. Some of our favorite insights from the entrepreneurs are:
"For me [the community support needed and the advice to entrepreneurs is] the 3Cs. Connecting with others because it enhances what we do. Collaboration because it helps amplify our impact and the work we do. Capital - we’re raising funds at the moment and we want to scale that to allow our services to expand around the world. " -
“Thanks to the $25k from USADF through the BAF program, we:
- Established drip irrigation for 1 acre of horticulture. This attracted government support to support an additional 2-3 acres.
- We bought a hatchering machine with its own generator as well, so that the farmers are able to access the poultry easily, instead of importing from abroad.
- We realized the hatchery needed a house. The money also supported the construction of a 5-room house.
I’m looking at 2025 with great hope because we already have a great investment on the ground. We can use the irrigation system on site to help our community. We look to empower about 5,000 farmers in the community to get into poultry farming and improve the quality of their livelihood.” -
"One thing that ADN can do is to connect us to investors and enterprises that are in similar sectors as we are. With the USADF funding from the BAF program, we have expanded our solar powered cold storage solutions on the ground. As a result, we are getting support from UNDP, and the Government of Italy to build another. " -
How the Community Can Get Involved
Omolayo encouraged the audience to take a look at our 2024 Impact Report to learn more about the different milestones ADN had accomplished this past year. Almaz emphasized that none of this would have been possible without the support of our partners who do this work alongside us and the funders who make it possible. After having a lively Q&A session, Almaz encouraged the audience to check out our Ecosystem Partnerships page for those interested in partnering with ADN and our Engagement Form for those interested in connecting with us in other ways. She then concluded the event by thanking everyone for their participation and encouraging them to contribute during Giving Tuesday. This year our board has generously decided to match donations dollar for dollar in order to maximize ADN’s impact across African and diaspora entrepreneurship, innovation and social impact.
