2019 AFRICAN DIASPORA IMPACT & INNOVATION AWARD IN USA

USPA NEWS - More than 500 Business people, Investors and earlier Stage Entrepreneurs gathered at African Diaspora Investment Symposium on Jan 24-26, 2019 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View in California to discuss about Investment in Africa.

At the last day of the Symposium, Ugandan born Social Entrepreneur Pamela Anyoti Peronaci was honored as one of the Builders of Africa's Future: 2019 African Diaspora “˜Impact & Innovation Awards´.

More than 500 Business people, Investors and earlier Stage Entrepreneurs gathered at African Diaspora Investment Symposium on Jan 24-26, 2019 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View in California to discuss about Investment in Africa.

At the last day of the Symposium, Ugandan born Social Entrepreneur Pamela Anyoti Peronaci was honored as one of the Builders of Africa's Future: 2019 African Diaspora “˜Impact & Innovation Awards´.

The Builders of Africa's Future Awards serves to showcase and award entrepreneurs who are running earlier stage Business Models that positively impact on the livelihoods of people in Africa. Ms Pamela Anyoti Peronaci received the - African Diaspora “˜Impact & Innovation Award´ in recognition of her embodiment of life-changing innovation and outstanding service to the farming communities in Uganda through her Social Enterprise ““ Sunshine Agro Products which she started in 2007 with only 15 widows and grew to 11,000 farmers by 2018. “˜I am very grateful to be recognized for my efforts and it is a wonderful honor´, Ms Pamela Anyoti Peronaci said.

Her vision was to lift rural women out of poverty through agriculture. The model was simple : Finance female growers, train them, provide them farm inputs, purchase their crops at a fair price, add value by processing and export their produce, pay back the investors and continue to engage more rural farmers.

By 2012, sensing the need for more capital to impact more farmers, Peronaci approached social impact investment financiers; Root Capital, Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund, Rabobank Foundation who all came in to provide seed money to start a long and challenging rural development agribusiness project.

“˜Our goal is to improve the lives of people ““ poor farm families who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. We are engaged in building economic value in the entire value chain. During her visit to the United States of America, Ms Pamela has been running nonstop trying to put together everything from production to logistics, finding traders, distributors, retailers. From Los Angeles where she already has a representative, she also managed to engage and agent ““ Priority Sales and Marketing who will take Asante Mama to retail stores such as Costco, Target, Walmart, Whole Foods and others. She intends to have Asante Mama brand present in 30,000 stores within 3 years.

Ms. Anyoti Peronaci is looking for investors ““ equity or venture capital and grants to grow the business together and expand into global markets. She believes that through trade, a lot of poverty will be reduced and so will immigration. She can be reached at info@asantemama.com

Alain Coomlan Tchegnon