Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards

Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards, 18 Southway Street, Eastgate, Sandton, Johannesburg.

An annual Summit & Awards with the mission to advance startup ecosystem building as a new approach to economic development to help more people and communities achieve economic independence through entrepreneurial success while awarding ecosystem builders.

Why do we call ASEB the Oscars of Africa’s Startup Ecosystem Builders?Because every ecosystem has its stars.But not ever...
11/06/2026

Why do we call ASEB the Oscars of Africa’s Startup Ecosystem Builders?

Because every ecosystem has its stars.

But not every ecosystem remembers the people who helped those stars rise.

Africa has celebrated founders.
We have celebrated funding rounds.
We have celebrated accelerators, unicorn dreams, pitch stages, innovation weeks, investor panels, startup rankings, and beautiful ecosystem reports.

Billions have gone into founders. But ask how much has gone into the builders behind the founders, and the room becomes quiet.

The hub manager who kept the doors open.
The mentor who stayed after the programme ended.
The advocate who fought for policy attention when nobody was listening.
The educator who helped founders understand business before they understood investment.
The community builder who made sure someone in a forgotten city still had access to opportunity.
The connector who opened the room, made the call, gave the recommendation, and disappeared from the success story.

These are the people was created to recognise.

The unsung heroes. The builders behind the builders.

The people who have been carrying Africa’s startup ecosystems before many people knew how to name the work.

So when we call ASEB the Oscars of Africa’s Startup Ecosystem Builders, we are not trying to sound glamorous.

We are making a statement. That ecosystem building deserves a stage. That invisible labour deserves public honour.

That the people behind Africa’s startup ecosystems deserve to be seen, celebrated, documented, connected, and strengthened.

Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards, ASEB is Africa’s continental platform for recognising, convening, and strengthening the people behind startup ecosystems. And ASEB 2026 is coming home to Johannesburg, where the journey began in 2022.

If you know an ecosystem builder who has carried founders, hubs, communities, programmes, policy conversations, investment readiness, market access, talent development, or ecosystem infrastructure, nominate them.

Do not wait until they burn out before you call them important.

Nominate them now. This is their Oscars.

www.asebs.com

Some people were in the room when ASEB began.Lady Thekla Mutero was one of them.From Namibia, she joined ASEB’s inaugura...
08/06/2026

Some people were in the room when ASEB began.

Lady Thekla Mutero was one of them.

From Namibia, she joined ASEB’s inaugural Johannesburg edition in 2022, at a time when we were still building the platform, still proving why ecosystem builders deserved to be recognised, and still insisting that Africa’s entrepreneurship story could not only be told through founders, investors, and funding headlines.

Today, as we continue the road to ASEB 2026 and return to Johannesburg for the Homecoming and 5th Edition Anniversary, Lady Thekla joins The Ecosystem Builder’s Lies as a Featured Voice in our first ASEB Voices conversation.

She is the Founding President of Emerging Mining Association of Namibia, an ASEB Ambassador, and an ASEB 2022 Winner. Her work sits in one of the spaces Africa must take seriously, where minerals, energy, science, policy, women’s leadership, entrepreneurship, ownership, and ecosystem building meet.

This matters because this session is not about performance.

It is about truth.

The session theme is The Lie That Passion Will Pay the Bills.

We are creating room for ecosystem builders to name the lies they have told themselves, the lies they have told others, and the lies the ecosystem has asked them to believe while they continued building.

If you have ever built something because the mission mattered, even when the support did not match the weight of the work, this conversation is for you.

The Ecosystem Builder’s Lies, An ASEB Voices Conversation

Session theme: The Lie That Passion Will Pay the Bills

Date: Thursday, 2 July 2026

Time: 16:00 to 17:30 Johannesburg

Format: Online

Register: https://luma.com/p2r7igu9

When you register, you can also indicate if you wish to share one lie during the conversation.

ASEB 2026 nominations are also open. Nominate yourself or someone who has been telling these lies quietly but still building Africa’s startup ecosystem.

Nominate here: www.asebs.com

Some builders are not invisible because their work is small. They are invisible because the ecosystem has been looking i...
05/06/2026

Some builders are not invisible because their work is small. They are invisible because the ecosystem has been looking in the same places for too long.

That is one of the truths ASEB 2026 nominations are forcing us to sit with. So far, we have received **1,346 nominations from 41 countries**, and while that number matters, what matters even more is what it is beginning to reveal. The nominations are not only coming from the ecosystems that dominate the headlines, the stages, the reports, and the investor conversations. They are also coming from places like Seychelles, Mauritania, Djibouti, and other smaller or often overlooked markets where ecosystem builders are doing the difficult work of creating possibility with less visibility, less infrastructure, and far fewer people watching.

Africa’s startup ecosystem cannot only recognise the loudest rooms.

In smaller ecosystems, the work is often heavier because one person can easily become the mentor, the connector, the programme designer, the policy translator, the funder chaser, the community organiser, and the person founders call when they no longer know where to turn. That work does not become less important because the country is smaller, the market is quieter, or the ecosystem is not yet appearing in every funding report. Sometimes the most committed builders are found in the places the continent has been too slow to name.

This is why we have listened to the ecosystem, and we have decided to extend the ASEB 2026 nominations deadline to **12 July 2026**.

More time. More room. More builders seen.

If you know someone building, supporting, mentoring, funding, convening, or strengthening entrepreneurship in Africa, nominate them. If you are doing the work yourself and your contribution has not yet been recognised, self nominations are encouraged.

New nomination deadline: **12 July 2026**
Nominate here: http://www.asebs.com

ASEB 2026 returns to Johannesburg, South Africa, from **20 to 22 October 2026** for the Homecoming and 5th Edition Anniversary of the Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit and Awards.

Johannesburg 2022. Nairobi 2023. Accra 2024. Addis Ababa 2025. Johannesburg 2026.

Let us recognise the unsung heroes building Africa’s startup ecosystem, not only in the places we already know how to see, but also in the places where builders have been carrying the work quietly for years.

Nominations for ASEB 2026 are closing on 5 June 2026.Across Africa, there are people and institutions doing the work tha...
03/06/2026

Nominations for ASEB 2026 are closing on 5 June 2026.

Across Africa, there are people and institutions doing the work that makes entrepreneurship possible.

They are building incubators.

They are running accelerators.

They are mentoring founders.

They are opening doors to capital.

They are helping entrepreneurs understand markets, policy, governance, compliance, investment readiness, and growth.

They are building communities where founders do not have to walk alone.

Much of this work happens before the spotlight arrives.

Before the founder is celebrated, someone has often spent months or years helping that founder become ready for the room.

Before the pitch is strong, someone helped rebuild the story.

Before the investor meeting, someone made the introduction.

Before the programme looked successful, someone carried the pressure, the reporting, the calls, the logistics, the founder breakdowns, and the invisible labour behind it.

This is the work ASEB exists to recognise.

The Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit and Awards began in Johannesburg in 2022, continued to Nairobi in 2023, Accra in 2024, Addis Ababa in 2025, and now returns to Johannesburg in 2026 for the Homecoming Edition and 5th Edition Anniversary.

ASEB 2026 will take place from 20 to 22 October 2026 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This edition is more than a return to where ASEB began.

It is a reminder that African entrepreneurship cannot be built by celebrating founders alone while ignoring the people, institutions, and systems that help founders survive, grow, and scale.

We are calling on founders, ecosystem builders, hubs, incubators, accelerators, mentors, coaches, investors, funders, universities, policymakers, development partners, corporate innovation teams, community builders, and entrepreneurship support organisations across Africa to submit nominations before the deadline.

If you know someone doing the hard and often unseen work of strengthening Africa’s startup ecosystems, nominate them.

If you are doing this work and your contribution has not yet been recognised, self nominations are encouraged.

Recognition does not solve every problem, but invisibility has a cost.

When ecosystem builders remain unseen, their work becomes easier to underfund, easier to overlook, and easier to treat as background labour.

ASEB exists to say that the people behind the ecosystem matter.

Nomination deadline: 5 June 2026

Nominate here: www.asebs.com

Announcement: Lusophone Africa Must Be SeenAfrica’s startup ecosystem has a language problem.Not because people do not s...
01/06/2026

Announcement: Lusophone Africa Must Be Seen

Africa’s startup ecosystem has a language problem.

Not because people do not speak.

Because too many continental platforms only hear what comes in English.

Angola is building.

Mozambique is building.

Cape Verde is building.

Guinea Bissau is building.

São Tomé and Príncipe is building.

But too often, Lusophone Africa is treated like a footnote in Africa’s innovation story. Mentioned late. Invited quietly. Translated poorly. Recognised rarely.

That is not inclusion.

That is a broken ecosystem pretending to be Pan African.

The Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit and Awards was created to recognise the people and institutions building the conditions founders need to grow. But recognition is only real when the unseen are finally seen.

Today, we take an important step.

We are proud to welcome Haymée Pérez Cogle to the ASEB Society, Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Society, the year round institutional home behind Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards(ASEB), as:

Country Partner for Angola

Regional Ambassador for Lusophone Africa

Advisory Board Member

Haymée Pérez Cogle is one of Angola’s important voices in venture building, founder support, early stage investing, and ecosystem development. As Managing Director of Founder Institute Luanda and Founder and Managing Director of Renascença Digital Consultoria, she has supported more than 50 startups and helped founders move from ideas to scalable, investment ready businesses.

Her appointment is not symbolic.

It is a bridge.

A bridge to founders who have been building without enough visibility.

A bridge to ecosystem builders who have been doing the work without the continental stage.

A bridge to a region Africa cannot keep calling “emerging” while refusing to properly include it.

ASEB 2026 nominations are open.

If you know someone building the startup ecosystem in Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, or anywhere in Africa, nominate them.

The mentors.

The hub leaders.

The funders.

The university innovators.

The policy builders.

The community builders.

The people doing the invisible work that makes founders possible.

Nominations are free.

Self nominations are welcome.

Nominate today:

www.asebs.com

The 5th Anniversary Homecoming Edition of ASEB takes place in Johannesburg from 20 to 22 October 2026.

ASEB began in Johannesburg in 2022, continued to Nairobi in 2023, Accra in 2024, Addis Ababa in 2025, and now returns home to Johannesburg in 2026.

Lusophone Africa must not remain at the margins of Africa’s startup ecosystem story.

Nominate. Join. Build.
www.asebs.com

And if you are tired of watching From the margins, join ASEB Society . Membership is Free. Year-Round. www.asebsociety.org

Sometimes, while we celebrate Africa, we miss the people who make Africa worth celebrating.Yesterday was Sally Njoh’s bi...
26/05/2026

Sometimes, while we celebrate Africa, we miss the people who make Africa worth celebrating.

Yesterday was Sally Njoh’s birthday, and as Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards(ASEB), we do not want to let that moment pass without honouring her properly.

Sally first came close to ASEB in the simplest way many people would overlook. She liked a post. Then she liked another one. Then she began resharing our work, carrying the message into places we could not always reach ourselves. What looked like ordinary online support slowly became something deeper, because sometimes people do not join a mission by signing a document first. They join by believing in it quietly before anyone gives them a title.

When ASEB prepared for the Accra edition in 2024, Sally Njoh came in as an Ambassador and made her way to Ghana. After experiencing the work more closely, she did not leave as someone who had simply attended another event. She came back as someone who had understood the heartbeat of the mission.

She understood that ASEB was never only about awards, stages, photographs, or continental gatherings. It was about the people building the conditions that allow founders, entrepreneurs, institutions, communities, and markets to grow.

Maybe because Sally is also a founder through Health, maybe because she knows what it means to build with limited resources, carry people, serve communities, and still keep going, she understood this work in a way only builders can understand builders.

After Ghana, she stepped deeper into the journey and became part of ASEB Society as Head of Stakeholder Engagement and Communication. Since then, her contribution has touched finalists, winners, partners, relationships, follow ups, and moments many people may never see, but that hold the work together when the public celebration is over.

In Ethiopia, during the 4th edition of ASEB in 2025, Sally reminded us again that ecosystem building is not only strategy, programming, branding, stakeholder mapping, or communication. It is also care, presence, patience, humility, and the willingness to show up when the work is heavy and not everything is visible.

So yes, this message comes a day after her birthday, but people like Sally should never be celebrated only because a calendar reminds us to do so.

Happy belated birthday, Sally Njoh.

Thank you for your heart, your service, your belief, your voice, your care, and your continued contribution to Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards(ASEB), ASEB Society, founders, ecosystem builders, and the future we are trying to build across Africa.

We see you, we appreciate you, and we are deeply grateful for you.

Today, we celebrate Ian Lorenzen, our Board Chair.On his birthday, the Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards...
22/05/2026

Today, we celebrate Ian Lorenzen, our Board Chair.

On his birthday, the Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards(ASEB) honours a leader whose contribution to ASEB has been felt with depth, consistency, and quiet strength.

As Executive Director and Partner of GrowthAfrica, and Board Chair of ASEB, Ian Lorenzen has brought more than experience to this journey. He has brought clarity, honesty, perspective, and a deep commitment to the real work of ecosystem building across Africa.

From the early conversations that shaped ASEB, to Johannesburg, Nairobi, Accra, Addis Ababa, and now the 5th Anniversary Homecoming Edition returning to Johannesburg in 2026, Ian has remained part of the story.
His contribution has helped ASEB stay grounded in an important truth.
Ecosystem building is not a slogan.
It is not an activity label.
It is the difficult, patient, and often invisible work of strengthening the conditions that allow entrepreneurs, founders, support organisations, investors, policymakers, universities, corporates, and communities to grow together.

Ian has consistently reminded us that this work must be protected from becoming noise. It must remain rooted in substance, standards, collaboration, and long term commitment.

At ASEB, we are grateful for his leadership, his wisdom, his belief in the mission, and his continued service to Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Happy birthday, Ian Lorenzen.

Thank you for walking this journey with us and for helping strengthen the meaning of ecosystem building across Africa.

As we celebrate Ian Lorenzen, one of the quiet builders of Africa’s startup ecosystem, we are reminded that many ecosystem builders are doing important work long before the spotlight finds them.

If you know an ecosystem builder whose work has strengthened entrepreneurs, communities, institutions, or markets, nominate them for ASEB 2026 at www.asebs.com.
Nominations are closing soon.

17/05/2026

They smiled with you while they broke you

14/05/2026

There comes a time when you stop trying to prove everything to everybody.

You stop explaining every scar.

You stop chasing every room.

You stopped begging people to understand a journey they never had the courage to walk.

And slowly, life begins to teach you something powerful.

Peace is not always loud.

Growth is not always visible.

Healing does not always look like smiling in every picture.

Sometimes, it looks like sitting quietly with everything you have survived and finally saying to yourself, "I am still here."

And for today, that is enough.

We are building kayaa. www.kayaa.app

Before she stood on the stage in Accra, she had already spent years carrying ecosystems most of Africa was still ignorin...
13/05/2026

Before she stood on the stage in Accra, she had already spent years carrying ecosystems most of Africa was still ignoring

In Accra 2024, Rym Jarou, PMP was not just in the room, she was inside the conversations, on the panels, on the ecosystem tour, and in the networking moments where builders stopped performing and started telling the truth about what it costs to build African .

And then she stood on that stage and was crowned the Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards Ecosystem Builder Champion of the Year.

Most people saw the applause, but saw the years behind it, the , the work, the , and the quiet labour of , , , and across a continent that still expects to carry impossible work without enough .

That is why exists, because Africa cannot keep celebrating while ignoring the people that make founders possible.

ASEB began in in 2022, continued to in 2023, in 2024, and in 2025, reaching countries, receiving over , recognising more than #200 , and helping facilitate over and

returns home to Johannesburg from 20 to 22 October 2026 for the 5th Anniversary Homecoming Edition.

There are more builders like Rym Jarou, PMP® in your ecosystem, people carrying the work quietly, connecting others, strengthening institutions, opening doors, and building the conditions that founders depend on.

They also deserve to be seen.

They also deserve to stand on that stage.

It could even be you.

Do not become part of the silence that keeps builders invisible.

Nominate yourself or nominate someone you know today.

ASEB 2026 has over 25 award categories for individuals and organisations.

www.asebs.com/nominate

















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