Aysha Tofa of StartUp Kano is Our #BellaNaijaWCW this Week!

Our #BellaNaijaWCW this week, Aysha Tofa is a serial entrepreneur who is also helping other women succeed in their entrepreneurial journey.

Aysha is the founder of StartUp Kano, an incubator and accelerator for startups. It promotes and advocates for technology, entrepreneurship, agribusiness and self-employment.

StartUp Kano provides founders with training on bootstrapping strategies as well as ways to secure funding from venture capitalists, angel investors and government grants.

Aysha started out in business in her third year in the university, buying and selling clothes to her friends and other students. When one of her friends was getting married, Aysha took a major risk, assuring the bride-to-be that she could supply 400 pieces of fabric for family and friends even though she had no idea how. Fortunately, things panned out; she made good of her word and some good money too.

Today, she’s a realtor, a youth and women advocate. She’s also the founder of Wave Advertising, Startup Kano, Women Founders Group, a platform for creative and innovative tech and non-tech women entrepreneurs.

WFG holds an annual event tagged Women Founders Conference for women in business, budding entrepreneurs, and startups. The goal is to make these women a family, to make them feel included, and speak up, and to help them connect and network.

Aysha is part of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community (Kano Shapers), which is a network of inspiring young people under the age of 30 working together to address local, regional and global challenges.

Aysha holds a B.Sc in Mass Communication from Bayero University, Kano, a psot-graduate diploma in the same discipline, as well as certificates in digital marketing and business and entrepreneurial journalism.

We celebrate Aysha for providing a space for startups, especially those founded by women, to grow and scale and we’re rooting for her!