Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards, 18 Southway Street, Eastgate, Sandton, Johannesburg (2026)

20/09/2026

30 DAYS TO ASEB 2026

Thirty days from today, the lights will come on at Alexander Forbes in Johannesburg.

People will see a stage, polished trophies, recognised speakers, carefully arranged seats and names being called during an Awards Ceremony.

But a stage never tells the whole story.

It will not show the founder who built an organisation from a borrowed desk because there was no institution willing to take the first risk.

It will not show the ecosystem builder who answered calls at midnight, made introductions without receiving a commission, reviewed pitch decks without being paid and used personal money to keep a programme alive because the entrepreneurs depending on it had nowhere else to go.

It will not show the mentor carrying someone else’s dream while privately questioning how much longer they can carry their own life.

It will not show the woman building while raising children, managing grief, surviving betrayal, fighting exhaustion and still entering rooms where she must prove that she belongs before anyone will listen to what she has built.

It will not show the builder in the mud.

The person creating roads where no roads exist, carrying costs produced by missing systems, building trust where institutions have failed and holding communities together inside environments that often appear designed to make progress unnecessarily difficult.

That is the story behind ASEB.

This was never simply about rewarding people who succeeded.

It is about witnessing those who kept building when the system gave them every reason to stop.

It is about recognising that behind every celebrated African founder is an entire invisible architecture of mentors, hubs, incubators, universities, policymakers, investors, researchers, service providers, community leaders and ordinary people who made the journey possible.

Some of them are exhausted.

Some are underfunded.

Some are questioning whether the work is worth the personal cost.

Some have been carrying responsibilities that should have been carried by institutions.

Yet they are still building.

In thirty days, we will not gather because Africa has finally fixed its entrepreneurial systems.

We will gather because it has not.

We will gather because ecosystem building cannot continue to depend on private sacrifice, unpaid labour, personal relationships and a few individuals who refuse to let everything collapse.

We will gather because the movement now needs an institution.

From 20 to 22 October 2026, ASEB returns to Johannesburg, the city where this journey began, for its fifth anniversary edition under the theme:

FROM MOVEMENT TO INSTITUTION

This is not an invitation to come and watch an event.

It is an invitation to sit inside the uncomfortable truth of what it takes to build in Africa, to meet the people carrying that work, to hear evidence that challenges what we think we know, and to help create systems strong enough to carry the people who have been carrying everyone else.

If you have ever built something without the support you needed, this room is for you.

If someone once opened a door, made an introduction, stayed on a call, shared knowledge or believed in you before your work became visible, this room is for them.

If you believe ecosystem building is a practice, a profession and a responsibility that deserves to be recognised, resourced and protected, you should be with us.

Thirty days remain.

Do not wait until the photographs appear to realise that you should have been in the room.

Purchase your physical or online ticket today at www.asebs.com

ASEB 2026
20 to 22 October 2026
Alexander Forbes, Sandton, Johannesburg

The movement has carried us this far. Now we must build the institution capable of carrying the movement.

18/09/2026

SOME ECOSYSTEMS ARE BUILT IN GLASS TOWERS. OTHERS BEGIN IN A CLASSROOM THAT BECOMES A LABORATORY BECAUSE A COUNTRY HAS BEEN CUT OFF FROM THE WORLD.

When COVID 19 closed South Sudan’s borders, access to essential supplies became painfully difficult.

There were no sophisticated laboratories or large research budgets. There was only a community refusing to accept that nothing could be done.

Honorable Engineer Yine Yenki and the GoGirls ICT Initiative brought together science educators, local alcohol brewers and community members to explore whether hand sanitiser could be produced using locally available materials.

Their small office and a classroom became makeshift laboratories.

They experimented, failed, documented, learned and tried again.

After years of persistence, their product was certified by the South Sudan Bureau of Standards as ready for the market.

This is what ecosystem building can look like in a country that rarely appears at the centre of Africa’s innovation conversation.

Across the continent, innovation is often presented through polished buildings, major technology centres and familiar cities. Yet some of Africa’s most important work is being built in places where resources are limited and visibility is never guaranteed.

The work is happening. The intelligence is there. The courage is there.

What is often missing is recognition and a continental conversation wide enough to include everyone.

We are honoured to announce Honorable Engineer Yine Yenki, Cofounder and Mentorship Director of GoGirls ICT Initiative, South Sudan, as a confirmed speaker at ASEB 2026.

Her speaker focus will be: “Advancing Digital Inclusion and Girls in STEM”

Yine Yenki is a computer scientist, mentor, technology leader and policy advocate with more than a decade of experience. She is the youngest person ever to serve on a national board in South Sudan and has contributed to telecommunications regulation, digital transformation, cybersecurity, data protection and national digital infrastructure development.

For GoGirls ICT Initiative, now in its eleventh year, the ASEB 2026 theme, “From Movement to Institution,” is deeply personal.

How do we build institutions that outlive their founders?

How do we ensure that young people in Juba and other overlooked places are recognised not merely as beneficiaries of innovation, but as creators of Africa’s future?

Honorable Engineer Yine Yenki is bringing South Sudan into a continental room that must learn to listen beyond the places it already knows.

Because inclusion is not inviting people into the conversation after every important decision has been made.

Inclusion is recognising that the conversation was incomplete without them.

Purchase your ticket at www.asebs.com and come listen to this incredible woman in Johannesburg.

Virtual tickets are also available for those joining from anywhere in Africa and beyond.

📅 20 to 22 October 2026

📍 Alexander Forbes, Sandton, Johannesburg

🎟️ www.asebs.com

16/09/2026

THESE WERE NOT CLICKS. THEY WERE ACTS OF BELIEF.

Voting for the Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Awards 2026 has officially closed.

21,422 votes were submitted.
19,683 were verified.
72 countries participated.
All 54 African countries were represented.

This is the largest public voting response we have ever received.

And it was not a simple click.

Our system permitted one vote per email address. Every voter had to register, receive a verification code by email, return to the platform and use that code before the vote could be verified.

There were several moments when they could have abandoned the process. But 19,683 times, someone completed it.

They took the time because they knew who they were voting for. They believed in the work because they had seen it, felt it or experienced what it made possible.

Someone remembered the person who answered when their business was collapsing.

Someone remembered the mentor who stayed after the programme ended.

Someone remembered the organisation that helped them register a company, prepare for an investor or enter a market that once felt unreachable.

Someone remembered the person who made the introduction but disappeared from the photograph when the partnership was announced.

This is where much of Africa’s ecosystem building evidence lives.

It lives in the memory of a founder who remembers who opened the first door. It lives in a young person who received a first opportunity. It lives in a community that finally had somewhere to take an idea.

Africa has consumed the labour of ecosystem builders for years without properly accounting for its cost.

Their relationships become somebody else’s partnership. Their credibility becomes somebody else’s access. Their unpaid hours become somebody else’s successful programme. Their introductions become investment announcements. Yet their names often disappear once the outcome becomes valuable.

That is why these 19,683 verified votes matter.

Each vote required time, intention and a verified email address. Each one left a trail of belief.

It said, “I know this person.”

It said, “I have seen this work.”

It said, “Our community has felt the difference.”

To every voter, thank you.

To every finalist, whether you receive an award or not, someone believed your work was worth registering, verifying and returning to vote for.

Now we must meet.

From 20 to 22 October 2026, ASEB 2026 will gather researchers, policymakers, investors, support organisations, founders and ecosystem builders at Alexander Forbes in Sandton, Johannesburg.

Dr Phumlani Nkontwana of the Allan Gray Centre for Africa Entrepreneurship will present three years of research into South Africa’s provincial entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Professor Erik Stam of Utrecht University will challenge us to move from ecosystem language to ecosystem evidence.

i4Policy will help connect that evidence to institutional and policy change across Africa.

Hon. Engineer Yine Nyika Yenki of South Sudan will bring the lived reality of technology leadership, digital inclusion and building from communities that mainstream innovation conversations frequently overlook.

More speakers and programme contributors will be announced.

The programme will also include an ecosystem tour designed as an experience in place and storytelling, moving through the different realities that shape entrepreneurship in Johannesburg, from the township economy to academic and innovation spaces, the city and entrepreneur support organisations.

We do not want delegates to see only polished offices and finished success stories. We want them to understand how opportunity is created, who creates it, what it costs and why different parts of an ecosystem must connect.

We are calling on sponsors and partners to stand with us.

The scale of this response shows that the work matters far beyond one event. We invite companies, development institutions, foundations, government agencies, universities, investors and organisations committed to African entrepreneurship to partner with ASEB 2026.

Support can be financial or in kind, including transport, accommodation, catering, event production, technology, media, printing, awards and the ecosystem tour.

This is an opportunity to support the people and institutions creating the conditions in which African entrepreneurs can survive, grow and reach new markets.

To discuss sponsorship or partnership, contact:

[email protected]
Mobile and WhatsApp: +27 81 085 9737

This is no longer an invitation to vote.

It is an invitation to enter the room where the people behind these votes will meet and decide what Africa must build next.

If 19,683 verified votes tell us who people believe in, ASEB 2026 must help us decide how institutions will stand behind them.

Secure your physical or online ticket:

https://www.quicket.co.za/events/393940-africa-startup-ecosystem-builders-summit-and-awards/ #/

20 to 22 October 2026
Alexander Forbes, Sandton, Johannesburg
www.asebs.com

15/09/2026

SOME FINALISTS DID NOT ASK HOW MANY VOTES THEY HAD. THEY ASKED WHETHER THEY REALLY DESERVED TO BE SEEN.

Some wanted to know whether the nomination was real and whether someone had genuinely noticed their work strongly enough to put their name forward.

Others asked, “Am I really an ecosystem builder?”

They had spent years creating programmes, connecting entrepreneurs to opportunities, building communities and solving problems that established institutions had overlooked. Yet nobody had ever given their work a name.

They were building ecosystems without knowing that others across Africa were carrying the same responsibility, facing the same limitations and wondering whether their work would ever be noticed.

For some, the nomination was deeply emotional. It meant that years of largely invisible work had finally reached someone.

Then came another painful question. Would they be able to afford to enter the room where their work might be recognised?

This exposed the contradiction at the heart of our field. Africa depends on ecosystem builders to create opportunities for entrepreneurs, yet many remain unsupported by the systems they are helping to hold together.

Tonight, at exactly 23:59 South African Standard Time, public voting for the ASEB 2026 will close.

We received 1,786 nominations from 52 African countries, from which 145 finalists were selected across 29 award categories.

To everyone who nominated someone, you may never fully understand what that decision meant. You did not simply submit a name. You told someone that their work had travelled beyond the place where they had been carrying it.

If you have not voted, this is your final opportunity:

www.asebs.com/finalists

At 23:59 tonight, the current early bird ticket prices for physical and online participation will also end.

From 20 to 22 October 2026, we will gather at Alexander Forbes in Sandton, Johannesburg, for the fifth anniversary edition of ASEB.

The journey began in Johannesburg in 2022, continued to Nairobi in 2023, Accra in 2024 and Addis Ababa in 2025. This year, we return to Johannesburg under the theme "From Movement to Institution".

We chose this theme because being noticed is not enough. Recognition can affirm someone, but only institutions can ensure that important work does not continue to depend on exhaustion, personal sacrifice and chance.

If you voted because you believe in someone’s work, do not allow your support to end when voting closes. Join us physically or online. Learn from the finalists. Sponsor someone’s participation. Partner with the Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Society and help us build a professional home for this field.

Secure your early bird ticket before 23:59 SAST tonight:

www.asebs.com

At midnight, voting will close and early bird prices will end.

What must not end is our willingness to support the people building the conditions Africa’s entrepreneurs depend on.

10/09/2026

A CERTIFICATE CANNOT GIVE A FOUNDER CUSTOMERS, CAPITAL OR A WORKING ECOSYSTEM.

Africa tells young people that entrepreneurship is the answer when economies cannot create enough jobs. Yet we send many of them into environments where customers are difficult to reach, capital arrives too late, policies are disconnected from reality and support ends when programme funding ends.

A founder can complete several accelerators, collect certificates and appear in impressive impact reports, then close the business because the conditions around it never changed. The founder carries the shame of failure, while every programme continues reporting that person as trained, mentored and supported.

This is why the Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit and Awards, known as ASEB, was born. We recognise the people and institutions working behind founders, but recognition without evidence will not strengthen the field.

At ASEB 2026, Dr Phumlani Nkontwana will give the first public presentation of three years of research through “The State of the Provincial Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in South Africa: A Live Sub National Demo.” His work will reveal what national averages often hide and help builders in smaller provinces and overlooked communities see their realities represented.

On Day Two, Dr Nkontwana will join Professor Erik Stam for “From Ecosystem Language to Ecosystem Evidence: What Does It Really Take to Build an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem?” They will ask what Africa is measuring, what our programmes are actually changing and who becomes accountable when money is spent but entrepreneurs’ conditions remain the same.

Tim Gelissen, Co Director of the Innovation for Policy Foundation, known as i4Policy, will join us as this evidence moves towards policy. Utrecht University, Stellenbosch University and i4Policy are collaborating on the next version of the Entrepreneurship Policy Learning Series for Africa, connecting research with those responsible for acting on it.

This year, ASEB received 1,786 nominations from 52 African countries, producing 145 finalists across 29 categories. These finalists represent the people and organisations building the systems we ask founders to trust.

Voting closes in five days, on 15 September 2026. Vote for them, share their work and help Africa learn their names.

Vote here: https://www.asebs.com/finalists

From 20 to 22 October 2026, we gather at Alexander Forbes Inc. in Sandton, Johannesburg, under the theme From Movement to Institution, because Africa cannot continue placing work this important on temporary projects and exhausted individuals.

If you support founders, fund programmes, shape policy, conduct research or run an entrepreneur support organisation, come and hear the evidence and help determine what Africa must build differently.

Physical seats are limited, early bird tickets will close soon, and online participation is available.

Join in person or online and purchase your ticket here: www.asebs.com

09/09/2026

CONFIRMED SPEAKER: PROFESSOR ERIK STAM

A founder completes an accelerator programme.

There are photographs, certificates, reports and celebration posts. The programme records another successful cohort. The funder receives the numbers. The ecosystem adds another activity to its annual report.

But after the applause, that founder may still return to the same reality: no customer, no capital, no route into a larger market, no supportive policy and no institution prepared to walk with them through the difficult years of building.

The programme happened.

But did the entrepreneur’s conditions change?

This is one of the uncomfortable questions we must be willing to confront if we are serious about supporting entrepreneurship in Africa.

Africa has become fluent in the language of startup ecosystems. We speak about hubs, accelerators, innovation, investment, mentorship, policy and entrepreneurship programmes. We count applications, training sessions, participants, pitch events, grants and businesses supported.

But activity is not the same as progress.

We can run more programmes every year while the environment around founders remains fragmented. We can train thousands of entrepreneurs while access to markets, finance, knowledge, infrastructure and responsive institutions remains beyond their reach. We can celebrate innovation while the people building our startup ecosystems continue working in isolation, underfunded and largely invisible.

The painful truth is that a founder cannot be trained out of a broken system.

At ASEB 2026, we are bringing evidence into the room.

We are honoured to confirm **Professor Erik Stam**, Professor of Strategy, Organization and Entrepreneurship at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, as a speaker at the fifth anniversary edition of the Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit and Awards.

Professor Stam is internationally recognised for his research on entrepreneurial ecosystems and productive entrepreneurship. His work has helped governments, researchers and ecosystem practitioners understand that successful entrepreneurship does not emerge from one programme, one fund, one hub or one policy. It grows when interconnected conditions such as leadership, finance, talent, knowledge, networks, institutions, infrastructure and market access begin to work together.

He will join ASEB 2026 live from the Netherlands for a featured session titled:

**“From Ecosystem Language to Ecosystem Evidence: What Does It Really Take to Build an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem?”**

This will not be another conversation designed to make us feel good about the work we are already doing.

It will challenge us to examine what an entrepreneurial ecosystem really is, what it is not, why isolated interventions rarely create systemic change and what Africa should measure if we genuinely want to know whether the conditions surrounding founders and startups are becoming stronger.

If you run an incubator, accelerator, innovation hub, university entrepreneurship centre or enterprise support organisation, you should be part of this conversation.

If you fund entrepreneurship programmes, you should be asking whether your investment is producing stronger businesses and stronger ecosystems, or simply more activities to report.

If you design startup policy, mentor founders, mobilise capital, conduct research or build platforms intended to support entrepreneurs, your experience belongs in this room too. ASEB is not only asking you to attend and listen. We are inviting you to contribute to the difficult work of understanding what must change.

This is why ASEB 2026 matters.

It is where Africa’s startup ecosystem builders are seen, connected and begin to recognise themselves as a field. It is where researchers meet practitioners, policymakers meet founders, funders meet the people implementing their programmes and institutions are challenged by the realities that polished reports often fail to show.

This year, ASEB received **1,786 nominations from 52 African countries**, resulting in **145 finalists across 29 award categories**. Behind those numbers is a continental community of people and institutions doing the often invisible work that allows founders and startups to survive, grow and contribute to their economies.

From **20 to 22 October 2026**, that community returns to Johannesburg, where the ASEB journey began in 2022, for our fifth anniversary edition at **Alexander Forbes in Sandton**.

If you can travel to Johannesburg, be in the physical room. Come prepared to listen, question, share what your ecosystem is facing and build relationships that can continue beyond the Summit.

If you cannot travel, you do not have to miss the conversation. **Online participation tickets are also available**, allowing ecosystem builders, institutions, founders, researchers and policymakers across Africa and beyond to join the programme virtually.

Do not wait until photographs from Johannesburg begin appearing online to realise that this was the conversation your work needed.

Come for the evidence.

Come with your experience.

Come with the questions your reports have not answered.

Come because Africa’s founders deserve more than programmes that end when the funding cycle ends.

**Be in the room, physically or online, and help us build the field.**

Purchase your ASEB 2026 ticket:

https://www.quicket.co.za/events/393940-africa-startup-ecosystem-builders-summit-and-awards/ #/

Learn more:

https://www.asebs.com

02/09/2026

SOUTH AFRICA IS THE CASE STUDY. AFRICA IS THE CONVERSATION.

Across Africa, entrepreneurship is often presented through a few capital cities, major technology centres and well funded organisations.

But what happens to people building in smaller cities, provinces, regions and countries?

What happens when important work remains invisible because it is missing from the data?

This is why we created Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards(ASEB) and the ASEB Society.

We are honoured to announce Dr. Phumlani Nkontwana, Founding Academic Director of the Allan Gray Centre for Africa Entrepreneurship, as a confirmed speaker at ASEB 2026.

He will deliver the first public presentation of three years of research:

“The State of the Provincial Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in South Africa”

South Africa is the case study, but the questions belong to the whole continent.

Do national reports show us the full picture?

Why do some places attract funding, talent and opportunities while others continue building with little support?

How can smaller and less visible places use evidence to show what they are building and what they need?

Whether you are working in a South African province, a Nigerian state, a Kenyan county, a Ghanaian region or a smaller country that rarely receives continental attention, this conversation should feel personal.

ASEB 2026 is about confronting uncomfortable truths, engaging with deep research and making space for African realities and stories that conventional reports often leave out.

It is about questioning the stories we repeat about Africa’s entrepreneurial progress, confronting the distance between what our ecosystem claims to provide and what entrepreneurs actually experience, exposing the ecosystem lies we have accepted for too long, and recognising those who continue building despite limited resources, fragmented support and years of being overlooked.

Our journey began in Johannesburg in 2022 and continued to Nairobi in 2023, Accra in 2024 and Addis Ababa in 2025. In 2026, ASEB returns home to Johannesburg for its fifth anniversary edition under the theme:

“From Movement to Institution”

Across this journey, ASEB has received more than 12,786 nominations and recognised over 200 people and organisations.

For ASEB 2026 alone, we received 1,786 nominations from 52 African countries. We look forward to welcoming and honouring 145 finalists across 29 award categories.

These are not just numbers. They represent people who have built, served and contributed across Africa, often without the visibility their work deserves.

ASEB 2026 takes place from 20 to 22 October 2026 at Alexander Forbes in Sandton, Johannesburg.

Tickets are available, with limited seats for those joining us in Johannesburg. Different ticket categories are available, including virtual tickets.

Get your ticket at www.asebs.com

Join the ASEB Society for free at www.asebsociety.org and continue this work with us beyond the Summit and Awards.

26/08/2026

Africa keeps asking ecosystem builders to create rooms they are rarely able to enter.

They find opportunities for founders while quietly missing opportunities themselves.
They connect entrepreneurs to funding while struggling to fund their own work.
They build communities, programmes and institutions, then watch someone else stand on a stage and tell the success story.

That is the uncomfortable truth behind much of Africa’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards(ASEB) was created because we became tired of watching the people who make entrepreneurship possible disappear from the picture.

From 1,786 nominations received across 52 African countries, only 145 finalists were selected across 29 award categories for Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards(ASEB) 2026.

Behind those numbers are people who kept building when there was no applause, no salary, no institutional protection and sometimes not even enough money to enter the very rooms their work helped create.

From 20 to 22 October 2026, we are bringing them to Johannesburg.

Not simply to receive recognition, but to meet one another, confront what is failing across our ecosystems, share what is working and begin building a professional community that continues long after the stage has been dismantled.

ASEB 2026 tickets are now live.

You can attend the complete three day experience, join the Summit and Awards Ceremony, attend the Awards Ceremony only, participate in the Johannesburg ecosystem tour or connect through the online experience.

Alexander Forbes, Sandton, Johannesburg

Book your place:
https://lnkd.in/d3yT26Kk

Recognition is never for sale. Purchasing a ticket or attending ASEB 2026 does not influence public voting, judging, finalist standing or who becomes an ASEB 2026 Winner.

Your ticket pays only for the experience and services included in your selected package.

But your presence does something that money cannot measure.
It tells an ecosystem builder who has spent years making other people visible:

This time, we came to see you.

20/08/2026

An email should not be the reason someone misses the moment their work is finally recognised.

The Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards 2026, known as ASEB 2026, has concluded the selection of its Top 5 Finalists for its fifth anniversary edition.

From 1,786 nominations received across 52 African countries, only 145 finalists were selected across 29 award categories.

But some finalists may still not know.

Their announcement email may be sitting in spam, buried beneath hundreds of messages or waiting in an inbox they no longer use. They may have changed jobs, their organisation may have updated its contact details, or they may be on leave with limited access.

And while we are trying to reach them, they are probably still somewhere behind the scenes, opening doors for founders, holding communities together and creating opportunities that will carry somebody else’s name.

Please help this recognition reach the people who earned it.

Please visit www.asebs.com/finalists

If you recognise a person or organisation, tag them. If you are a finalist and have already received your announcement email, help us reach the other finalists in your category.

View the finalists and vote:
https://www.asebs.com/finalists⁠
Voting closes on 15 September 2026.

Kindly tag a finalist. Some messages are too important to remain unread.

Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit & Awards

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