What would you say if you found yourself in a room with 3,000 global leaders and entrepreneurs who each paid $5,000 (about 18,700,000 UGX) to be there? People who invest that much in a single ticket value every second of their time. What would you say, and how would you deliver it?

That event is TED—a world-renowned global conference platform famous for bringing together top visionaries, innovators, and world leaders to share transformative ideas. Founded in 1984, it has grown into one of the most prestigious gatherings on the planet, making it a dream destination for many founders.

In 2026, that dream became a reality for Ssali Martin, founder of Smart Foods and a Ugandan entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in the soybean value-addition chain.

However, attending an event like TED is expensive. Between ticket costs, international flights, and hotel accommodation, the price tag keeps many out of reach. Opportunities like this often remain unfulfilled without support from organizations like Acumen.

Acumen is a global organization that invests in entrepreneurs building a more inclusive world. As part of its mission, Acumen sponsors promising founders to attend global leadership and innovation forums—making high-stakes opportunities accessible to those driving local impact.

Responding to a call within the global Acumen Fellows Network searching for high-impact founders to attend TED2026, Martin applied alongside fellow entrepreneurs from around the world. Out of a competitive pool of global applicants, he was selected as one of just 15 fellows to receive sponsorship.

Acumen’s sponsorship allowed entrepreneurs to focus on what mattered: making strategic connections and learning directly from each other’s diverse journeys.

TED2026 took place at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Canada from April 13–17, 2026. Getting selected was a huge win, but an even bigger challenge lay ahead: How do you pitch your vision to 3,000 high-value peers when every second counts?

This is where Acumen’s support went even deeper. Before setting foot in Vancouver, the cohort underwent an intensive, month-long training program focused on one single objective: mastering the 55-second pitch.

A 55-second pitch is a concise, spoken summary designed to clearly communicate who you are, the problem you solve, and the impact of your business in under a minute.

At TED, you have under a minute to capture attention and build rapport with potential investors. Acumen did not change what the entrepreneurs were building; they refined how they communicated it. For Martin, this was transformative. As he learned through the process, to attract capital, a founder must be visible and articulate their growth, market, and financial structure clearly.

The true magic of events like TED lies in meeting people whose work you have long admired from afar. Among them was Simon Sinek, the famed British-American author and organizational strategist whose ideas on leadership and purpose have shaped businesses worldwide. Meeting someone whose talks had long inspired his entrepreneurial path made the experience all the more surreal for Martin.

A photo of Martin with Simon Sinek

But the highlight of the whole experience came when Martin met former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. Standing alongside one of the world’s most prominent climate leaders, he felt the full weight of how far Smart Foods had come. Fifteen years of dedication had taken him from a passionate student building a vision at Makerere University to an established founder standing among global icons.

A photo of Martin with former US Vice President Al Gore

For Smart Foods, the conference delivered immediate relational capital, yielding over 50 strategic connections. One such relationship sparked an invitation from Sarah Treanor to feature on the World Bank’s Table for 10 Billion podcast. On the episode—focused on AgriConnect and reaching 300 million farmers—Martin shared perspectives from Uganda’s agri-food system, highlighting the importance of practical innovation, stronger market connections, and solutions shaped by the realities of smallholder farmers.

On the final night, as Martin reflected on four transformative days that had sharpened his vision, a profound sense of humility washed over him. The years of hard work, sleepless nights, and quiet self-doubt had all culminated in this moment. He felt deeply grateful to God for how far he had come.

Standing alongside world leaders, Martin felt a quiet sense of fulfillment, paired with a renewed energy to return home and scale Smart Foods Uganda’s mission. The experience served as a powerful reminder that Smart Foods is more than just a business—it is part of a larger movement to tackle interconnected root issues like poverty and undernutrition. And solving these real challenges requires moral imagination, collective effort, and ecosystem thinking rather than working in isolation.

For making this defining moment possible, Martin remains forever grateful to Acumen.

Watch Martin’s 55-second pitch below: