Pan-Atlantic programme graduates 11 women tech founders

Eleven women founders have graduated from the seventh cohort of the Women in Tech Incubator and Accelerator Programme, organised by Pan-Atlantic University’s Enterprise Development Centre in partnership with the Standard Chartered Foundation and Village Capital.

The programme, which supports women-owned technology and tech-enabled businesses, has backed 60 women since it was launched in 2019, with the organisers saying the beneficiaries have gone on to create wider impact across sectors including education, healthcare, fashion, wellness and supply chain management.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony in Lagos, Director of the Enterprise Development Centre, Dr Nneka Okekearu, said the programme had evolved to respond to changes in the economy and technology sector.

She stated that the latest cohort received specialised advisory services alongside capacity building, mentoring and coaching to help the founders strengthen their businesses.

“Every year we see changes economically, socially, and in the tech space. This year, we introduced more specialised advisory services,” Okekearu noted.

She said the programme also focused on strengthening participating businesses’ governance and financial structures, including helping founders establish boards.

“We set up a board for each business to help them refine their model. When that is done, they become a magnet for funding. They have financial discipline, financial literacy, and all the structures funders require,” she noted.

According to Okekearu, the programme also provides seed grants and access to single-digit loan pools through its network.

The initiative targets businesses that are at least 51 per cent women-owned, technology-enabled and beyond the ideation stage.

Okekearu said the businesses in the latest cohort were developing solutions to problems they had encountered personally or observed in their communities.

“We have a woman building a platform for children with learning disabilities. Another built a platform after watching her mother make over a million naira daily but couldn’t access funding because of a lack of documentation,” she said.

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Head of Corporate Affairs, Brand and Marketing, Standard Chartered Nigeria, Joke Adu, said the bank remained committed to expanding economic opportunities for women through entrepreneurship.

She argued that the programme combined training and business advisory support, with selected participants receiving seed funding to scale their businesses.

“Today we are celebrating Cohort 7 of the Standard Chartered Foundation Women in Tech Incubator. We started in 2019 and have supported 60 women, impacting thousands,” Adu said.

She added that the businesses supported by the programme were providing solutions across different sectors, while calling for greater collaboration among organisations and government to support more women entrepreneurs.

The keynote speaker, Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre, Oreoluwa Leshi, said increasing women’s participation in technology was important to Nigeria’s development.

Leshi said women accounted for only about 20 per cent of Nigeria’s technology workforce, stressing the need for more programmes that provide women-led businesses with access to mentorship, funding and business support.

One of the graduates, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Check It Limited, Fara Popoola, said the programme helped her narrow her business focus and better define her target market.

Check It Limited operates Proctor 360, a platform designed to help wholesalers protect trade during import and export.

“Three months ago, I was all over the place with multiple products and customer segments. This programme helped me focus on my ideal customer and how to serve them,” Popoola stated.

She said the grant she received would enable the company to deploy field agents and expand its reach among businesses in the informal sector.