Chairman, Pan African proprietary investment company, Heirs Holdings and founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Mr. Tony Elumelu has increased from 20 to 50, the number of annual grants he will make available to Start-ups who develop local content applications that solve African challenges while providing sustainable returns.

In partnership with the Co-Creation Hub (a social innovation centre dedicated to accelerating the application of social capital and technology for economic prosperity), the Tony Elumelu Foundation believes the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs can be nurtured out of African with the right bearings.

Elumelu who spoke at the award ceremony of some tech entrepreneurs who had already received their grants, and had created sustainable businesses, last Friday in Lagos, applauded the entrepreneurs' enthusiasm and commitment and outlined why the foundation was involved in encouraging the developers.

According to him, "The beginning stage of a business is perhaps the most challenging period in the life cycle of an entrepreneur; yet it is also the most crucial in determining its sustainability and this is why we are providing support at this level. We are awarding early stage grants - not investment funding - designed to purely to provide or supplement seed money that one would typically raise from 'friends or family'."

He continued; "We are targeting those who have the ideas but not the means to build a business. We want to move them to a stage where investors can seriously consider them."

"With the level of talent I see at the CCHub, there is no reason why the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs cannot come out of Africa."

Elumelu added that he was particularly looking to support local content businesses set to solve social challenges as well as provide a return.

"The grant is a great opportunity to identify businesses that can play a role in developing the continent. I strongly believe that we can do well in business whilst doing good for Africa. This is the essence of Africapitalism and these are the next generation of Africapitalists who will move Africa forward," he said.

Speaking also, the Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson commended the Elumelu's vision of socially responsible businesses, and advised entrepreneurs to first focus on building applications or products that add value and enhance the quality of people's lives, before thinking about making money.

The start-ups include: BudgIT, Traclist and Efiko. Head Partner at BudgIT, a data processing company, Olusegun Onigbinde said: "The grant helped my team improve the company's data strategy and mobile presence.

Adebayo Adebayo of Efiko also said: The funds assisted with the launch of a national pilot scheme in secondary schools which impacted over 12,500 students in under a year, while Emotu Balogun of Traclist said: "Because of the grant, we were able to invest and grow our revenues from N80,000 to an average of N1,600,000 monthly, and we see more room for growth."

The three joined Naijateenz.com, JobsinNigeria.com, VarsoftMediaLibrary.com and Tiketmobile.com who had already received grants.