AFSIC – Investing in Africa PRESS RELEASE
Contact Information: Olivia Attenborough, Head of Digital Strategy, olivia
Release Date: 20 May 2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AFSIC connections unlocked key funding for the Africa College Foundation to provide education for youth in Africa
Africa College Foundation (ACF) is empowering African youth for a brighter future. A UK-based charity, headquartered in South Africa, ACF advocates that education has the power to transform individual lives and safeguard our collective future. ACF supports the development of the first low-cost, high return on investment of African capital for demand-driven education and innovation for, by and with the most marginalised among the largest population of youth on earth.
Dr Tahirih, the CEO at Africa College Foundation attended AFSIC 2024, which proved to be a pivotal key in unlocking connections with key changemakers.
How are you supporting world-leading education for the largest population of youth on the planet?
We do this through the following ways:
a. High return impact investment through our wing at MI Capital: https://marketing.afsic.net/e/455392/2025-05-20/53sc9k/4071389278/h/TC-OnTcEs4v3A69VcDmF4FSUg7eZJ1tn9q_K1CP2YKc
b. Partnerships to establish business services in the BPO sector and digital skills
c. Joint academies and centres assisting likeminded universities in the global north to reach a larger number of students
d. Fundraising dinners featuring our Goodwill Ambassadors and celebrity philanthropists
As trailblazers in the education space, what trends are you both pioneering and seeing in the conversation around education in Africa?
We have pioneered two different elements, the combination of which is highly transformative. One is consciousness-based education, or CBE, where we work with learners to uncover their hidden talents and provide them agency. The second is that access to secondary education is a universal right, but access to post-secondary education is not. We are pioneering that universalisation by accompanying anyone interested to access quality tertiary education either at no, or extremely low costs through our innovative learn and earn scheme, where employability skills are provided to our students right from the get go so they have an income and pay a symbolic sum towards the costs of their education to strengthen that sense of agency that is at the core of our transformative educational process. We offer a range of possibilities from US-accredited university degrees to vocational training, skills such as culinary arts, security, cybersecurity, investment and conservation. We are making every effort to make education of highest quality available to the most marginalised in the society, who through our system of education transform into the most capable changemakers in their spaces.
What value did you derive from attending AFSIC 2024 and what sort of funding channels were you able to unlock?
At AFSIC 2024, I met a range of individuals interested in what we offer, resulting in nine countries inviting us to establish an Education Town for their nation’s youth. I also met individual investors. We are in the process of now preparing for G20 and the connections made at G20 are keen to further align with us and our network of changemakers.
What expansion does the Africa College Foundation plan to do with the unlocked investment?
We outline all the key steps in our Master Plan to put £50 billion into the hands of marginalised families across Africa, through education and assisting students in our brochure here
What more can we expect to see from the Africa College Foundation in the next few years?
We are actively engaged in transforming Johannesburg CBD into the education and innovation capital the youngest continent on earth needs. But in addition to that we are working in rural communities around Sub-Saharan Africa, to ensure we reach diverse populations to make our services and our organisation more sustainable for all.
About AFSIC – Investing in Africa:
AFSIC – Investing in Africa has become perhaps Africa’s most important annual investment event. AFSIC is wholly focused on accelerating Africa’s economic emergence by matching investment opportunities in Africa transforming Africa’s business, trade and investment environment, sustainably growing Africa’s economy and increasing African incomes in all business sectors at a continental scale.
African Investments Limited (www.africaninvestments.ai), operates two multi award-winning digital platforms, the African Investments Dashboard which matches investment opportunities to our global network of institutional investors and the Africa Business Opportunities Dashboard, which matches business, trade and investment opportunities across Africa covering all business products, sectors, countries in Africa and multiple business objectives. The digital platforms won the global 2022 Salesforce Partner Innovation Award for Financial Services. |
