GEF: from paper forms to 25,000 applications, with Socianet as CRM partner
Socianet is the CRM partner of the Global Entrepreneurship Festival (GEF). The festival's applicants, attendees, partners and E-Village bookings run through one system its whole team can see.
It started with a paper form. In 2017, applying to the festival's entrepreneurship programme meant buying a form, handing it in at one office and coming back for three interviews in person. Our team moved the whole process online, and applications went from about 1,000 to more than 25,000 in the first year. The same team has looked after the festival's applicants and contacts ever since: first as its digital agency, now as its CRM partner.
At a glance
| Client | The Global Entrepreneurship Festival (GEF), which brings founders, investors and partners together, with a year-round entrepreneurship programme |
|---|---|
| Sector | Entrepreneurship programmes and events |
| Where | Started in Nigeria, with members and partners in other countries. GEF 2026 is in Cairo, Egypt. |
| When | From 2017. The results below cover the first five years. |
| Socianet's role | CRM partner: contacts, applications, bookings and follow-up in one system. Before the CRM, our team ran online registration, email, social media and the digital side of each event. |
| Who did the work | Socianet's team: the festival's digital agency first (working as Socialight in Nigeria), and its CRM partner today |
The starting point
Most of the programme ran on paper and ran once a year. To apply, a person had to:
- Buy a form.
- Fill it in and submit it at the office.
- Come back in person for a three-stage interview.
A process like that only reaches people who can get to one office, several times. Every applicant was a sheet of paper, so nobody could see how many were waiting, who had been interviewed or who had gone quiet. The festival wanted more people in, and a process its team could keep track of.
What we did
- Put applications and interviews online. Applicants no longer had to buy a form or travel to submit it. Every application arrived as a record, not a sheet of paper.
- Went back to the people who had applied before. We gathered the applicant lists from earlier years into one place and sent them a series of personalised emails.
- Built up the festival's social media pages, so new applicants could find the programme.
- Added partners as demand grew. Partnership and sponsorship campaigns followed, and a reality TV show was created around the programme. Fidelity Bank, PlayTV, TVC and MTV came on board.
- Ran the digital side of the events, year after year: registration, live updates and livestreams.
The results
- Applications rose from about 1,000 to more than 25,000 in the first year.
- Over five years we managed 8 events with more than 50,000 attendees in total.
- Those events drew more than 3 million livestream views.
- The campaigns reached about 500 million impressions over the same five years.
- Handling applications took less staff time and cost less than the paper process.
The eighth event, in Ondo State, ran for 24 hours with about 10,000 attendees. It led to a new state agency, which is the subject of our ONDEA case study. These figures come from our project records.
How GEF runs on Socianet
The festival now manages more than 20,000 contacts on Socianet, with automated booking for its E-Village locations. A process that began with paper forms at one office sits in one system the whole team can see.
How a programme like this runs in Socianet
- One record per person. An applicant, an attendee and a partner each have one contact record, with every form, email and booking on it. Nobody keeps a private list.
- Forms that feed the CRM. An application or registration form creates or updates the contact and tags it with the programme or event, so nothing is typed in twice.
- Bookings that look after themselves. E-Village sessions are booked online, and confirmations and reminders go out without anyone sending them.
- A pipeline for the programme. Each applicant can sit at a stage, from applied to interviewed to accepted, with an owner and a next step, so the team sees how many are waiting at each stage instead of a pile of forms.
- Follow-up that runs on its own. Applicants who go quiet can get a reminder, and new contacts a welcome series, from the same system.
GEF 2026 in Cairo
At GEF 2026 in Cairo, from 6 to 8 November, Socianet is the festival's CRM partner, with a premium booth. Come to the booth to see the system the festival runs on, and how the same set-up works for a sales team.
What a sales team can take from it
- The way in decides how many people come in. When enquiring is hard work, you only hear from the most determined. The festival had far more interested people than its paper form let through. A form that feeds your CRM, or a WhatsApp chat that lands in your inbox, removes the hard part.
- Your old lists are worth a message. The first campaign went to people who had applied in earlier years. Most teams have a list like that sitting in a spreadsheet. Our guide to importing contacts from Excel to a CRM covers how to clean one up.
- Volume needs stages. Nobody can interview 25,000 people from a pile of forms. Each person needs a stage, an owner and a next step, which is what pipeline stages are for.
More on running stand leads, sponsors and exhibitors in one place: Socianet for events and exhibitions.
Run your list like this
Pick “Training” and watch Socianet take an enquiry, book the session and line up the follow-ups. It takes about two minutes, with no sign-up.
Still working from spreadsheets? Send us your sheet and we send it back as a working pipeline, free.
