The African Development Bank Group's entrepreneur-targeted ENNOVA platform has been nominated for a "Salute to Excellence Award" by The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).
The Bank designed ENNOVA to foster entrepreneurial spirit among African youth. The artificial intelligence-powered digital platform offers tools, trainings and networks to boost youth entrepreneurship, strengthen digital skills and connect African entrepreneurs to job and access-to-finance opportunities.
America's largest organisation of journalists and media-related professionals of colour issues the awards to recognise journalism and communications that best cover and communicate about the people or issues of the African and African American Diaspora or experience.
The Bank's ENNOVA launch and communications campaign is nominated in the Salute to Excellence Awards "PR and Marketing Campaigns: Cause-Related Business" category. The Bank partnered with five development-focused organisations to start ENNOVA, and the communications campaign helped deliver a 58.8 percent increase in service platform users in under ten months.
Administered by the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab in the Bank's Human Capital, Youth and Skills Development Department, ENNOVA kicked off its campaign in February 2025 with a plenary event at the Sankalp Africa Summit, regarded as one of the continent's largest conferences on entrepreneurship and sustainable development. The session and Bank-staffed conference booth detailed how ENNOVA connects entrepreneurs, higher educational institutions, investors and enterprise support organisations - entities dedicated to helping startups, micro-businesses, and growing companies scale.
The Bank's Salute to Excellence Awards nomination references a suite of Bank communications released at the ENNOVA launch and disseminated through the end of December 2025, including ENNOVA explainer videos and launch event summary video, press release, exhibition booth outreach, media engagement, social media posts promoting ENNOVA services, a youth beneficiary blog and the ENNOVA platform itself.
Click to watch and learn more about the ENNOVA for youth entrepreneurs launch.
"This Salute to Excellence Awards nomination compliments ENNOVA's contribution to the African Development Bank Group's vision to enhance skills development and job opportunities for African youth and women, and to transform these demographics into economic dividend," said Dr. Martha Phiri, the Bank's Director for Human Capital, Youth and Skills Development.
Following the launch at the Sankalp Africa Summit, more than one-third of the summit's estimated 1,500 attendees registered for ENNOVA.
"I heard about ENNOVA and I think it is a fantastic platform because it will help with knowledge sharing so that investors and entrepreneurs such as myself can have access to information on one platform," said Nelly Ngongoro, one of the youth entrepreneurs registering for ENNOVA.
ENNOVA's development was made possible through the support of development partners that share its vision of fostering youth entrepreneurship, innovation and job creation across Africa, including; Fund for African Private Sector Assistance; the Organization of African Caribbean and Pacific States; Korea-Africa Economic Cooperation; the European Commission; and the Government of Switzerland.
Winners of the Salute to Excellence Awards winners will be announced during the National Association of Black Journalists Conference & Career Fair in this August in Atlanta, Georgia (USA).
To learn more about ENNOVA's features, click here to access the programme's fact sheet.
