The Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) Prize Competition, a philanthropic initiative of Alibaba Philanthropy, has announced the 20 entrepreneurs who will advance to its 2026 semi-finals in Nairobi later this week.
The top 20 were selected from an expanded top 100 cohort drawn from more than 24 000 applications across all 54 African countries.
Candidates advanced through three-person judging-panel interviews that assessed leadership, innovation, impact, scalability and commercial strength. The process was reinforced by on-the-ground visits to every company advancing to the Semi-Final and comprehensive due diligence conducted by PlusVC, allowing ABH to test the written applications against the businesses, teams and communities behind them.
The selected 20 entrepreneurs will now compete for 10 places in the ABH semi-final.
Together, the ABH 2026 top 20 cohort represents 12 African countries and 11 sectors, with eight women entrepreneurs accounting for 40% of the cohort.
Collectively, their businesses generated approximately $85-million in 2025 and span diverse sectors including agriculture and agritech, healthcare, manufacturing, climate technology, financial services, education, energy, and technology.
The 2026 Top 20 Heroes, and the categories they work in, are:
- Farah Emara — FreshSource (Egypt) — AgriTech
- Nour El-Assal — Tagaddod (Egypt) — Renewable Energy
- Salma Tammam — REME-D (Egypt) — Healthcare
- Ahmed Shaaban — Simplex (Egypt) — Manufacturing
- Affiong Williams — Reelfruit (Nigeria) — Manufacturing
- Kelvin Umechukwu — Bumpa) (Nigeria) — Enterprise / SaaS
- Ikechukwu Anoke — Zuri Health Ltd (Kenya) — HealthTech
- Naom Monari — Bena Care Limited (Kenya) — HealthTech
- Joseph Mungai — AceleAfrica Limited (Kenya) — Energy
- Louisa Gathecha — Bottle Logistics East Africa Ltd (Kenya) — Industrial (ClimateTech)
- Meriem Benabad — Z.6 or Z.SYS INC (Morocco) — Retail (FMCG) – Marketplace
- Nidal Tafah — MIRRIAH (Morocco) — AgriTech
- Samson Fentaye — Thur Biotech Manufacturing Plc (Ethiopia) — Agritech
- Jess Roussos — BluLever Education Pty Ltd (South Africa) — EdTech
- David Kamugundu — eFiche Ltd (Rwanda) — HealthTech
- Joseph Paul — Dawa Mkononi (Tanzania) — HealthTech
- Gildas Zodome — Bio Phyto (Benin) — Agritech
- Appessika Adanin Laurent Koffi — Green Agro Valley (Côte d’Ivoire) — Agritech
- Hagasata Rakotoson — Solidis SA (Madagascar) — FinTech
- Rodney Kofi Kyei — Crux Global Limited (Ghana) — Media and Entertainment