We are proud to share that our Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Chernor Issa Jollah, represented CIJ Digital Hub as one of the 17+ Sierra Leonean startup founders who participated in the READY Salone Founder and VC Roundtable.
Convened by Felei TechCity as part of READY Salone’s Investor Day, the roundtable brought Sierra Leonean founders together with leading African investors, including @Zachariah George of Launch Africa Ventures and Tamim El Zein of Seedstars Africa Ventures, creating space for direct conversations around investment, growth, scalability and the future of Sierra Leone’s startup ecosystem.
Strengthening Our Investment Readiness
For CIJ Digital Hub, being represented at this table was more than participation. It was an opportunity to share our journey, learn directly from experienced investors, better understand what venture capital looks for in emerging businesses, and strengthen our approach to becoming a more sustainable, scalable and investment-ready organisation.
One lesson remains clear: impact must be supported by a strong and scalable business model.
As CIJ Digital Hub continues its journey from a digital training hub toward a stronger Enterprise Support Organisation, we are applying these insights to strengthen our business model, governance, financial systems, measurable impact, recurring revenue and pathway to scale.
Through Africa BrandNest Hub, we are also building stronger connections between digital skills, entrepreneurship, SME digital transformation and market access.
We appreciate the Ministry of Communication, Technology and Innovation, International Trade Centre (ITC), KOICA Nigeria Office and Felei TechCity, alongside the participating investors and everyone who made this engagement possible.
Thank you also to every founder who joined the conversation and to Innovation SL, Muzambiringa and Cravings4Development for your continued work in supporting entrepreneurs and strengthening Sierra Leone’s startup ecosystem.
For Chernor and the @CIJ Digital Hub team, the experience reinforced an important direction: we are not only building programmes. We are building an organisation capable of creating measurable impact, generating sustainable value and attracting the partnerships and investment required to scale.
The learning continues. The partners
