Tiso Foundation

The Tiso Foundation is a South African non-profit organisation and registered Public Benefit Organisation, established in 2001, that provides full-cost bursaries to academically deserving students from disadvantaged backgrounds for study in any field at accredited South African universities and universities of technology. It was founded by Nkululeko Sowazi and David Adomakoh, principals of the Tiso Group, one of South Africa's leading black-controlled investment companies, whose holdings have spanned infrastructure and natural-resources businesses including coal, steel supply, mining services, power, and property development.

The Foundation is funded through dividends and returns generated by the Tiso Group's investment portfolio, and its purpose is explicitly rooted in redress: using the proceeds of a black-owned investment success story to open up higher-education access that apartheid-era exclusion, and its enduring economic legacy, still deny to many talented South African students. Since the Tertiary Bursary Programme began, the Foundation has invested more than R100 million in more than 50 students, covering tuition, accommodation, and living expenses in full, alongside academic support, life-skills training, and networking opportunities with Tiso's corporate and institutional partners.

Unlike a company bursary tied to a single employer, the Tiso Foundation's award is not linked to future employment within the Tiso Group or any of its portfolio companies, and publicly available information describes no work-back or repayment obligation -- the bursary functions as a philanthropic grant rather than a recruitment pipeline.