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Nigerian woman Temie Giwa-Tubosun wins African business hero award

Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 8:03 AM by Khadijah Thabit

- A Nigerian entrepreneur has taken home the top prize at the Jack Ma Foundation's first annual prize for African businesses

- Giwa-Tubosun walked away with N90.3 million

- The organisation says it will award a N361.5 million grant to 10 African entrepreneurs every year for the next 10 years

Nigerian entrepreneur Temie Giwa-Tubosun has emerged winner and bagged the top prize for Jack Ma Foundation's first annual prize for African businesses.

Giwa-Tubosun is the founder and CEO of LifeBank, a Lagos-based blood and oxygen delivery company that connects registered blood banks to hospitals and patients in need of urgent blood supplies.

Giwa-Tubosun announced at the 'African Business Heroes' event held in Accra, Ghana on Saturday, November 16, said that LifeBank will start delivering blood through Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), known as drones.

She said the decision to add drones to their mobility fleet was to get blood to patients in places that are hard to reach.

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Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, needs up to 1.8 million units of blood every year, but the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) collects only about 66,000 units per year, leaving a deficit of more than 1.7million pints of blood, according to the country's health ministry.

Around 10,000 applicants from 50 African countries were whittled down to just 10 for the "Africa's Business Heroes," finale event, held Saturday in Accra, Ghana.

The final 10 pitched their businesses to four judges, including Ma, Zimbabwean businessman Strive Masiyiwa, Joe Tsai, Vice Chairman Alibaba Group and banking boss Ibukun Awosika.

In second and third place were Egyptian Omar Sakr, founder and CEO, Nawah-Scientific and Christelle Kwizera, founder, Water Access Rwanda who were awarded $150,000 and $100,000 each.

The remaining finalists each walked away with $65,000 for their businesses.

Meanwhile, Arthur Nwabufo, is the first Nigerian to reach the Antarctica, an expedition that was done to celebrates 200 years Russian navigators discovered the place.