Kenyan entrepreneur Chebet Lesan is this year's winner of Africa Business Heroes awards in which she has scooped a whooping Sh33 million as capital injection to boost her company's business.
This year marks the second staging of the Jack Ma Foundation-led award which aims at identifying and recognizing the continent’s top entrepreneurs.
Lesan is the founder of Bright Green Renewable Energy, a social enterprise that turns urban waste into clean burning charcoal for households, schools, farmers, hospitals and many other entities.
The capital injection that she has bagged as the prize for her win is meant to help her promote access to clean cooking fuel across Africa.
Africa’s Business Heroes announced Lesan's win through a tweet.
The tweet read, “After seven months of looking for heroes, we’ve found our top three finalists. Chebet of @brightgreenke has emerged winner of the 2020 ABH competition. Coming second and third respectively is Soga of @mdaasglobal and Ethel of @MoneyMart_mfi. We are proud of these inspiring changemakers.”
https://twitter.com/africa_heroes/status/1334128524404396037?s=19
Oluwasoga Oni of MDaaS Global, Nigeria and Ethel Mupambwa of MoneyMart Finance, Zimbabwe came second and third respectively and they will share a prize of US$1.5 million.
Lesan is passionate about more people accessing clean energy as she told a local daily in October win for Bright Green Renewable Energy will be a win for more than 800 million people in Africa desiring that privilege.
The ABH winner said, “It will mean that the problem we are solving of energy poverty across Africa, that the voices of 800 million people in Africa who still don’t have access to clean cooking fuel have been heard and are going to get the support they need to be able to improve their situation.”
The Jack Ma Foundation will also offer the winner mentorship.
The foundation has committed approximately Sh1.1 billion in grant for 10 years to be awarded to contestants in various business fields such as fashion, agriculture, e-commerce, Artificial Intelligence, healthcare, renewable energy and Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
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