African Diaspora Network

Who We Are

African Diaspora Network is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Our mission is to sustainably serve our constituencies, marketplace, and partners. This is inextricably linked to engaging the African diaspora through an ethics of care, enhancing their well-being in their adopted homelands, and facilitating their strategic involvement in the development of Africa.

Since 2010, the African Diaspora Network (ADN) has energized collaboration among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and African diasporans to uplift Africa and the communities we live in. ADN is dedicated to providing virtual and physical forums to accelerate access to resources that foster partnership, knowledge sharing, and advance investment opportunities.

We are the first organization to bring together a global network of Africans and friends of Africa connecting entrepreneurs, investors, academics, and leaders of nonprofit organizations, corporations, and official development agencies to learn, engage, and co-create possibilities. Our tangible results have cemented us as a trusted partner that provides real value to the ecosystem.

Our Vision

We aim to be a global leader in diaspora philanthropy, investment, and innovation.

Our Mission

We bring together Africans on the continent, in the diaspora, and friends of Africa to actualize their full potential, activate their entrepreneurial spirit, and strategically mobilize financial and intellectual resources to ensure a brighter future for the African continent.

ADN in Action

At ADN, we inform, engage, and activate the African Diaspora, Africans, and friends of Africa. African Diaspora Network fulfills its mission and implements its strategy through our programs and initiatives:

Knowledge-Sharing Convenings

African Diaspora Investment Symposium (ADIS) is the premier Silicon Valley conference that celebrates and fosters the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of Africans, Africans in the Diaspora, and friends of Africa. The symposium offers a dive deep into some of the hottest investment and development trends on the continent, and an opportunity to network with investors, make meaningful business connections, foster partnerships and create impact.

Impact and Innovation Forums are a year-round speaker series taking place across Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., New York City, and virtually featuring thought-provoking conversations around strategic and consistent diaspora engagement in Africa’s future.

Accelerator Programs

Builders of Africa’s Future (BAF) is an enterprise accelerator program for grassroots African entrepreneurs. The goal is to help scale their ventures and impact through training, mentorship and a platform to pitch their businesses to potential partners and investors. Since 2018, Builders of Africa’s Future has recognized and catalyzed 53 African startups.

Accelerating Black Leadership and Entrepreneurship (ABLE) is an enterprise accelerator program designed to strengthen, energize, and support small businesses and startup organizations led by Black entrepreneurs in the United States. We currently have 10 entrepreneurs participating in our second cohort of ABLE.

Initiatives

Start Your Social Enterprise (SYSE) helps accelerate the entrepreneurial skills of Catholic Sisters who are connected to underserved communities facing poverty and other challenges across the Continent. Sisters are eligible to apply for Builders of Africa’s Future upon completion.

ADN Africa Digital Health Pilot: With seed funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ADN is developing a digital health pilot focused on mobilizing African medical professionals from abroad to help address gestational diabetes in Africa.