Recharging for Entrepreneurship – The African Network, Founded Right In Silicon Valley

The African Network, TAN, is a global non-profit organization with the sole mandate of fostering entrepreneurship and technology among people of African descent. TAN was founded in Silicon Valley, California in 2004 to provide a support structure and network for entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, and community leaders worldwide. The objective of TAN is to leverage all available resources through networking, education, training, and mentoring to develop entrepreneurship and enable community development among all people of African descent.

TAN accomplishes these aspects of fostering entrepreneurship and community development through two of its programs: TAN Conference (TANCon) and TAN Empowerment program (TEP). TANCon is now organized annually on two continents – Africa and the United States of America (USA). Its main purpose is to create an ecosystem where entrepreneurs, would-be entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investors, business leaders, community leaders and policy makers network and discuss investments, business opportunities and other issues of relevance to all people of African Descent on a global level.

With this purpose of fostering entrepreneurship comes the giving-back to the community aspect of the organization known as the TAN Empowerment Program (TEP). The main aim of the TEP program is to mentor, train, educate and equip future entrepreneurs, especially the youth, with resources needed to take that leap of faith. In addition, TEP tends to focus on low-income, needy, under-served and less privileged communities with a view to mobilizing resources that could be used to uplift them. These resources could come in the form of mentoring, training, coaching and affordable physical resources that can make a difference in their lives.