Nominee: Mariama Tuzee Toure
Category: Startup of the Year
Country: Liberia 🇱🇷
Entrepreneurship is often about recognising opportunities where others see obstacles. It involves identifying an unmet need, developing a practical solution and building a venture capable of creating value for both customers and the wider community.
For Liberian entrepreneur Mariama Tuzee Toure, that opportunity lies in tourism: helping people discover the cultural richness, local experiences and destinations that make Liberia distinctive, while creating more opportunities for the communities that bring those experiences to life.
As the founder of Tuzee En Afrique, Mariama is developing a tourism innovation venture designed to make authentic and accessible experiences in Liberia easier to discover and book. Her approach connects travellers with local experiences while seeking to create economic opportunities for guides, creatives, small businesses and cultural practitioners.
Nominated for Startup of the Year at the WAFRIC Awards 2026, Mariama’s entrepreneurial journey reflects the potential of locally driven innovation to connect tourism with community development and economic participation.
Tuzee En Afrique: Turning a Tourism Opportunity into a Startup
Liberia has a wealth of cultural experiences, community traditions, natural attractions and local businesses that can contribute to its tourism economy. Yet discovering these experiences, identifying reliable providers and arranging accessible travel options can be challenging for visitors.
Tuzee En Afrique was developed to help address this challenge.
According to reporting on the 2026 Orange Social Venture Prize competition in Liberia, the startup aims to make authentic and accessible tourism experiences easier to discover and book. Its model connects travellers with verified local experiences, affordable packages and community-based cultural journeys.
The concept responds to a practical need: bringing tourism opportunities together in ways that are easier for people to navigate.
Rather than focusing exclusively on destinations, this approach places the experience and the people behind it at the centre of the tourism journey. Local guides, cultural practitioners, creatives and small businesses can all contribute to what visitors discover and remember about a place.
For a startup operating in this space, the opportunity is to help bridge the gap between people looking for meaningful travel experiences and local providers seeking to reach a wider audience.
A Community-Centred Approach to Tourism
One of the defining elements of Tuzee En Afrique is its stated emphasis on community participation.
Tourism can create economic opportunities beyond hotels and major attractions. Local guides, artisans, food businesses, cultural performers, independent service providers and small enterprises can all contribute to a visitor’s experience.
However, these businesses need ways to become visible to potential customers and connect with the wider tourism market.
Tuzee En Afrique seeks to strengthen these connections by integrating community-based experiences into the tourism value chain.
This approach matters because the economic benefits of tourism depend partly on whether local communities can participate in the industry, provide services and generate income from the activities taking place around them.
By bringing local experiences into a more accessible discovery and booking process, the venture aims to help travellers explore Liberia while creating opportunities for businesses and individuals who contribute to its cultural and tourism offerings.
The model also reflects a wider entrepreneurial principle: a startup can pursue commercial opportunities while addressing a challenge that affects other people and businesses.
Accessibility and Affordability in the Travel Experience
Travel planning can be complicated when information is scattered across different providers, booking arrangements are unclear or the available packages do not suit a visitor’s budget.
Tuzee En Afrique’s stated focus on verified experiences and affordable packages positions accessibility as an important part of its offering.
For visitors, a more organised discovery process can help them understand what experiences are available and how to arrange them. For local providers, being included in a platform that connects them with travellers may offer an additional route to market.
The value of this approach will ultimately depend on execution: the reliability of listings, the quality of participating providers, the ease of booking and the experience delivered to customers.
Nevertheless, the concept addresses a recognisable opportunity within the tourism sector, where trust, convenience and access to reliable information can influence travel decisions.
By focusing on these elements, Tuzee En Afrique seeks to make local tourism experiences more discoverable while helping connect visitors with the people and businesses that deliver them.
Recognition at Liberia’s 2026 Orange Social Venture Prize
A significant milestone in Mariama’s entrepreneurial journey came in 2026, when Tuzee En Afrique won first place in Liberia’s national Orange Social Venture Prize competition.
Reports published by The News Newspaper Liberia and Hot Pepper Liberia identified Tuzee En Afrique as the first-place winner, with a reported prize of US$3,000.
The competition is associated with the Orange Digital Center and provides a platform through which entrepreneurs can present ventures and access opportunities connected to training, mentorship, resources and professional networks.
The recognition placed Tuzee En Afrique among the Liberian ventures highlighted in the 2026 national competition.
For an emerging startup, recognition in an entrepreneurship competition can offer more than a financial award. It can provide visibility, opportunities to engage with other innovators and a platform from which to communicate the venture’s purpose to potential partners and customers.
The first-place result is a concrete milestone in Tuzee En Afrique’s development and an important part of the evidence supporting Mariama’s profile as a startup founder.
It is also an example of how an idea focused on a local market can attract attention within a broader conversation about innovation and social enterprise.
Entrepreneurship and the Wider Development of Liberia
Mariama’s startup journey sits within a broader context of efforts to strengthen entrepreneurship and economic opportunity in Liberia.
Startups can contribute to economic development by identifying gaps in existing services, introducing new business models and creating ways for individuals and smaller enterprises to reach customers.
In tourism, the opportunity extends beyond the startup itself. A functioning tourism ecosystem can connect transport providers, accommodation businesses, guides, restaurants, artisans, cultural organisations and other local enterprises.
If these connections are developed effectively, tourism spending can support a wider network of economic activity.
Tuzee En Afrique’s community-centred model is designed around this potential. Its ambition is not simply to help visitors find places to go, but to connect their experiences with the people and businesses that make those experiences possible.
As the venture develops, its long-term significance will depend on its ability to build trust, establish strong local partnerships, deliver dependable services and create lasting value for both travellers and participating communities.
These are the practical challenges and opportunities that define the journey from an entrepreneurial idea to a sustainable startup.
Youth Participation and National Development
Mariama’s professional journey also extends into youth engagement and public service.
In December 2025, Liberia’s Executive Mansion announced her appointment to the National Youth Advisory Council, following the resignation of another council member. The announcement described the appointment as part of the government’s commitment to inclusive youth representation and participation in national development.
This appointment provides additional context for her involvement in Liberia’s development landscape.
Entrepreneurship and youth participation intersect in important ways. Young people who develop businesses can contribute ideas, create services, explore employment opportunities and participate in conversations about the country’s economic future.
At the same time, engagement in youth-focused institutions can provide a channel through which young people’s perspectives and concerns enter wider policy discussions.
Mariama’s startup work and her appointment to the council represent two distinct forms of participation: building a venture focused on tourism innovation and serving within a national structure for youth engagement.
Both form part of her documented public profile, although the appointment itself should not be confused with an achievement of the startup.
Why Mariama Tuzee Toure Is a WAFRIC Awards 2026 Nominee
The Startup of the Year category recognises entrepreneurial ventures that demonstrate innovation, initiative and the potential to create meaningful value.
Mariama Tuzee Toure’s nomination highlights the work behind Tuzee En Afrique, a tourism innovation startup seeking to make Liberian experiences easier to discover and book while connecting travellers with local providers.
The venture’s community-centred approach places local guides, cultural experiences, creatives and small businesses within a broader tourism opportunity. Its first-place finish in Liberia’s 2026 Orange Social Venture Prize provides a documented milestone in its early development.
Her journey also illustrates an important aspect of entrepreneurship: innovation does not always require inventing an entirely new industry. It can involve identifying gaps in how an existing sector operates and developing a more accessible way for people to participate in it.
For Liberia, the opportunity lies in connecting tourism potential with reliable services, community participation and sustainable business development.
As WAFRIC Awards 2026 recognises entrepreneurs and innovators from across West Africa, Mariama’s nomination brings attention to a Liberian startup working to connect travel, culture and local enterprise.
Support Mariama Tuzee Toure
Mariama Tuzee Toure is representing Liberia in the Startup of the Year category at the WAFRIC Awards 2026.
Support her nomination through the official public voting platform:
Public voting runs from October 12 to November 15, 2026. Public votes contribute to the selection process but do not solely determine the eventual winner. Final selection follows the published WAFRIC Awards procedures and criteria.
Read the complete voting procedures here:
WAFRIC Awards 2026 — Recognizing the Unseen. Celebrating the Exceptional.