AlumUnite leverages a collaborative effort between alumni across the world, their alma mater, and corporations to crowdfund and crowd-manage projects to create a sustainable impact in education.
AlumUnite is a purpose-built cloud-based alumni platform that connects all educated Africans through their alumni groups (secondary school) onwards.
Their goal is to create a safe, secure space where alumni can donate to their alma maters and mentor students with similar career aspirations.
Alumni-run businesses are also empowered to supply goods and services to all schools utilizing funding disbursed through AlumUnite’s platform.
The end goal is to develop Africa’s human capital by leveraging the collective effort of the continent’s intellectual capital and communities.
Their platform enables African alumni around the world to seamlessly and collectively create sustainable impact for their alma maters and local communities.
Alumni can also engage in their fun and interactive platform that is meticulously designed for social impact in Africa.
Individuals can share achievements, interests, projects, and photos on the platform.
They want Africans to take pride in the lofty goals achieved and encourage solidarity amongst their alma maters.
How it Works
Infrastructure
For many students across Africa, a fully-furnished classroom is a luxury as school infrastructure remains grossly inadequate.
This encroaches heavily on students’ psychological and educational performance, putting them at the bottom of the radar when compared to their global counterparts.
Through their platform, Alumni groups can donate towards improving the existing structures, hence, closing the gap and fostering better lives for students.
Curriculum
Innovative and quality education paves the way for a successful future – one that many students may not have access to due to a seemingly sub-par curriculum that has given rise to a learning crisis.
On AlumUnite, private and public stakeholders can collaborate towards redefining the meaning of ‘classroom’ for students and unlocking the potential of youths in Africa through an improved curriculum.
Scholarship & Mentorship
With the right support and mentorship, dreams are not only shaped but become manifest.
Alumunite provides an exclusive opportunity to mentor students – career-wise and personally – in an evolving world. You can also fund scholarships for students or host legacy scholarships for individuals in other communities.
Curated Groups with P2P verification
Their built-in peer verification process ensures that alumni, once registered, are placed in secure, and structured groups with schoolmates from existing and previous schools. Each group or user is afforded the highest level of privacy on the platform.
Smart Pairing of Alumni/Student Mentoring
As an alumnus, you will have the opportunity to mentor and be mentored. You will provide the student(s) with academic guidance as well as career and personal development advice that will enhance the students’ experience and launch them into a successful future.
Scalable Alumni/Group Governance
Each alumni group has a committee of current students and alumni, who help to plan, coordinate and implement programs and/or events.
They also evaluate a completed project, rate the vendor and provide feedback.
Crowdfunding and Crowd-Sponsorship of Campaigns
Alumni can give back to their alma mater and help current and future students in several ways.
Each group can create campaigns to fund infrastructure projects, provide scholarships and mentorship or work towards improving the curriculum for students.
To help decide which project to embark on, alumni groups can leverage AlumUnite’s Smart Voting features. Also, each alumnus is free to donate solely to preferred campaigns.
Targeted Job/Opportunities Board
Being a part of AlumUnite can pay off in big ways.
Their platform offers networking opportunities that can connect alumni with established professionals from diverse fields of study, who are in a position to help alumni and current students learn the ropes, pursue career changes, and most importantly, land jobs.
Additionally, you have access to resources on professional development, career planning, and up-to-date information on current trends in the business community.
Alumni Events with Tiered Business/Corporate Sponsorship
Alumni groups can host various events with sponsorship backing from businesses and corporations on the platform.
The events, ranging from workshops, reunions, career fairs, etc., are a great way to help alumni create impact whilst building community and staying connected.
Innovative Student-Driven Project Sourcing
As the saying goes, ‘he who wears the shoes knows where it pinches.’ Their platform enables students to seek assistance by spotlighting pressing areas where urgent intervention is required.
This serves as a pointer to alumni groups and donors, thus, fast-tracking the development and transformation of the educational system.
Vendor verification & PMO of funded projects
The AlumUnite platform enables external vendors to undertake the execution of different project campaigns being sponsored by alumni groups or individuals.
Each Vendor is verified through a coordinated verification system and each project is monitored using a PMO system.
Founders
Charles Immanuel Akhimien
Charles Immanuel Akhimien is a Co-Founder and Co-CEO at AlumUnite.
Charles is a curious lifelong learner with exposure to many cultures through living and working across four continents which have helped him develop poise and empathy in different settings.
He is also a management consultant (Chartered Professional Engineer) with 10+ years of experience spanning various industries and functions across Africa, Australia, India, and North America.
Additionally, his skills traverse strategy, consulting, digital business build, project and stakeholder management, business development, negotiation, research, data analysis, and analytics; with interests in UX design, market validation, and go-to-market strategy of platform businesses/models.
Obinna Nnabuihe
Obinna Nnabuihe is the co-founder at AlumUnite and is an experienced, versatile, enthusiastic leader and professional with varied industry experience within multi-cultural and large enterprises.
He is passionate about strategy, digital transformation, and social impact.
Corporate strategy, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Predictive Analytics, Campaign Management, Segmentation, Business Development, Strategic project management, Marketing Analytics, Strategic Consulting, Mobile payment systems, Web/Application Development and Front-end Design, Forecasting, Product Development.
Investors & Funding Rounds
LoftyInc Capital Management
LoftyInc Capital Management has announced the final close of its oversubscribed LoftyInc Afro-preneurs Fund 3 (LAF3), which closed out at US$14.3 million.
Founded in 2017, LoftyInc Capital Management is a venture capital firm based in Lagos that seeks to invest in spaces such as logistics, printing services, commercial services, educational and training services, cybersecurity, ed-tech, fintech, e-health tech, and e-commerce.
Coming off its first unicorn exit via its LoftyInc Afro-preneurs Fund 2 (LAF2) investment in Flutterwave, it launched LAF3 in 2021 as a US$10 million fund. However, it closed 40 percent oversubscribed at US$14.2 million.
The close was significant in that it brought together an array of investor types including young African operators and founders, African HNWIs, and African financial institutions.
In line with its strategy of writing smart checks quickly to exceptional founders, LAF3 has already invested in 52 companies across the continent in fintech, e-commerce, media, logistics, and healthcare.
The fund is pan-African, with a particular focus on Nigeria and Egypt, including the most promising tech solutions from the large, global African diaspora.
With the close of the fund, the LoftyInc Capital Management team will significantly deepen its focus on investing in the most promising early to growth-stage startups improving African lives with disruptive tech-enabled products and services.
Main Competitors
EduHive: This is an EdTech platform based in Bangladesh that makes education digitally available.
DavtonLearn: It is powering affordable E-learning infrastructure for Nigeria and Africa.
Primeclass.io: With this you can achieve Your Learning Goals, and get Job-Ready Skills at 100% Placement Rate.
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