Africa's Business Heroes Competition Plays Significant Role in Supporting Entrepreneurship Landscape

The Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) Prize Competition, a philanthropic initiative sponsored by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Philanthropy, launched its fifth annual edition in March this year, calling talents across the African continent to apply.

In this interview, Amena Elsaie, a multiple award-winning entrepreneur showcased her experience being among the top 10 finalists of the ABH 2022 competition and how this achievement benefited her career.

Amena is the Co-founder of Helm consulting company, created in 2014, to support more than 4,000 persons with disabilities and promote their social inclusion, serving more than 200 entities and working with top-notch experts from 16 countries.

What are the selection criteria for the finalists, as you think? In my opinion, the most important selection criteria are the founders, including their sense of purpose, leadership qualities, passion and their ability to turn their vision into reality.

Those who make it to the final stage must demonstrate that they are visionary entrepreneurs who embody innovation, resilience and growth potential vital in the transformation of Africa.

The other major factors that I believe ABH judges consider is impact and sustainability.

What need is the innovation solving and how many people stand to benefit from it? For an idea to sail through the different stages, it must address specific needs in a community and in a sustainable manner that ensures longevity and no harm to the community.

How did you know about Africa’s Business Heroes grant? Through RiseUp Summit, one of ABH’s Anchor partners in Africa. The RiseUp Summit is an annual entrepreneurship and innovation event that takes place in Egypt.

It is one of the leading startup and technology conferences in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The summit brings together entrepreneurs, investors, industry experts and thought leaders from around the world to engage in discussions, share knowledge and showcase innovative ideas and startups.

How could such competition support the entrepreneurship and innovation landscape in Egypt? I think Africa's Business Heroes plays a significant role in supporting the entrepreneurship landscape in Egypt and the rest of Africa by providing recognition, mentorship, training, networking, publicity and access to capital to participating entrepreneurs.

That said, the program is giving Egyptian entrepreneurs like me a platform to showcase their businesses, while also driving innovation, job creation and sustainable economic development not only in Egypt but across the continent.

Out of over 21,000 contestants, what do you think you introduced differently to be selected among the top 10? 2022 was not our first attempt in the ABH Prize Competition. We applied for the first time in 2021 and made it to the top 20. Although we were disappointed when Helm didn’t proceed further, we took the feedback that the judges gave us to improve our business and our pitch. We took time to analyse our strengths and weaknesses, objectively went over what we could have done better and designed a new strategy with all the learnings from the ABH journey. We challenged ourselves to make the changes and we are happy to see that our positive mindset paid off.

What are the key lessons that you have learnt from Africa’s Business Heroes Prize Competition? Success is not linear. ABH stimulated us to re-examine how we evaluate success. Success has multiple dimensions and with this knowledge, we are now able to ensure that not only is evaluation constant at Helm, but there are many factors for our Advisory Board to consider before deeming a project unsuccessful or successful.

The ABH experience also highlighted the significance of celebrating success and challenges. Challenges means it is a tougher game, but one that you’re well equipped for. One of our biggest games currently is to become a part of a network of like-minded people, like-minded entrepreneurs, as well as coaches and mentors.

Becoming part of this network allows you to learn from the best on a continuous basis. It’s not temporary or part time – now we are part of this great community that allows access to an enormous number of resources that we can use. Winning the competition is a bonus but going through the journey of the competition taught us how to set a vision for ourselves and actualize it.

The key lesson we have learnt in this competition is to always be open to learning, be receptive to feedback and to continuously evaluate ourselves against our own performance and those of our peers in the same industry – regionally and globally. This allows us to always set a higher benchmark for ourselves and deliver exceptionally well.

Could you tell us more about Helm Consulting? and how did you come up with the idea? About 10 years ago, two incidents brought me and our other founder Ramez together to start a business that would change our lives and potentially those of a million others.

I was a college student back then. During a trip to Germany, I had an opportunity to visit a museum about the visually impaired named “Dialogue in the Dark.” After spending an hour there to experience what being blind was like, I was shocked to realize how ignorant I was of the day-to-day challenges facing persons with disabilities. I decided to do something about it back home.

On the other hand, Ramez, who was then also a college student, encountered an incident as well that sparked his idea of doing something to improve social inclusivity.

He was attending a marketing class listening to others’ presentations when a visually impaired classmate of his asked him what was going on – the classmate felt lost because his physical limitations made it difficult for him to follow the presentations.

Right then and there, Ramez decided to adapt his own presentation to include an audio description to ensure his visually impaired classmate feels included in the classroom.

Later on, Ramez and I decided to start “Helm” to work towards the goal of fostering inclusivity for people with disabilities in all aspects of life. We do this by offering comprehensive and customizable inclusion services for businesses, professionals and governments that can help remove environmental, technological and social barriers.

Our services support companies and organizations to comply with local disability laws, especially regarding disability hiring quotas and the disability inclusion policy of companies or organizations.

How has your business evolved after Africa’s Business Heroes Prize Competition? After competing in ABH 2022, we started taking steps to build a foundation to scale across countries in Africa and beyond.

Thanks to the lessons gained in the process, we now have a lot more clarity on what we want to achieve and what we need to do to get there.

With our enhanced visibility and articulation of our goals, we designed a stronger organizational strategy that cuts across all areas of our business: implementing a better hiring strategy, adopting a stronger leadership approach, defining a healthy company culture and building a community that is as passionate as we are about the life-changing work we do.

Our focus is now on developing a strong foundation of our business that will ensure survival and growth as well as sustained impact on the communities around us.

What advice would you like to give to Egyptian entrepreneurs who are interested in applying for the ABH grant? Surround yourself with people who believe in you and your dreams; stay away from the ones who doubt your capabilities.

Remember that there are a lot of challenges that you pass through that most people will not understand as a female entrepreneur; especially when you start getting busy chasing that dream of yours.

They will try to “protect you” from that risk – that is when you need to remember that doing something that no one else did, requires you to do what most people are not willing to do.

Most people do not know that the body reacts to fear and excitement exactly the same way so always turn your fears into excitement. Remember to always be comfortable by being uncomfortable in order to continue growing.

If you are comfortable, it means you stopped learning.

A lot of entrepreneurs think the lack of money is the problem. The lack of money is never the problem. Focus on building a great team that is driven by passion and strives to learn; remember that they come first because they are the engine and they always need to be fuelled.

People invest their time and money in people, not just a good idea – everybody has ideas of great businesses or the impact they want to make.

Your passion, your determination and your willpower to overcome constant obstacles are what will be the magnet that will attract people to join you on your journey to build and innovate to make this world a better place.