Meet the 10 Orange African Social Venture Prize 2014 finalists selected to go into an intensive online acceleration program facilitated by VC4Africa. Congratulations to the entrepreneurs!!
The Orange African Social Venture Prize, which has enjoyed considerable success since its launch in 2011, rewards entrepreneurs developing products or services that use ICT in an innovative way to achieve social impact and meet the needs of Africans in fields such as health, agriculture, education, energy, industry or trade.
Here are the 10 selected finalists for the 2014 Orange African Social Venture Prize,
- Senemar+ (Cameroon) – Founder: Rodrigues KWATE
SENEMAR + matches ICT and the agriculture sector in Africa, focusing on reinventing practices of African agricultural value chains (from production to marketing through transport and packaging), and facilitating communication among various actors like producers, buyers, retailers, fertilizers, inputs providers and non-governmental organizations.
Mewanko Farm (Cameroon) – Founder: Christelle LAMINSI KENMOE
Mewanko Farm provides a digital community platform for the direct online sale of small producers’ products to urban, sub-regional and international markets. The goal is to increase the income of small farmers by putting them in direct contact with their markets through ICT and to improve their living conditions.
Modisar (Botswana) – Founder: Thuto Paul GAOTINGWE
Modisar is a livestock farm management application (desktop, web & mobile) that makes it easy for farmers to manage their farms. Modisar aims to ensure the continuity and sustainability of the livestock sector, a major contributor to the national Gross Domestic Product in Botswana.
Station Energy Ivoire (Ivory coast) – Founder: Alexandre CASTEL
Station Energy has developed an innovative retail concept of energy services: a shop equipped with photovoltaic panels to provide various services (rental batteries allowing access to lighting, renting cold spaces, Internet access, low consumption equipment sales, etc.) in rural or urban areas. The solution enables energy access and affordability for all, inspired by the models of both gas service stations and African grocery shops.
Bouquet Pass Santé (Senegal) – Founder: Moussa TRAORE
Bouquet Pass Santé is a platform that allows the diaspora and persons residing in Senegal to pay medical consultation for themselves or loved ones directly online.
Twinklebox (Kenya) – Founder: Jack Edwar TADRS
Twinkle box combines mobile technology with solar technology, allowing Kenyan customers to buy scratch cards to pay for energy, just as they would for mobile phones. This model will solve the high upfront cost problem of solar solutions, lowering the price to the amount paid for keresone light.
KamerStartup (Cameroon) – Founder: Norbert MONKAM
KamerStartup aims to support emerging Cameroonian digital startups with a coworking space, an acceleration program for digital startups and a virtual platform for promotion, visibility and networking of Cameroonian startups. Their vision is to “Place Central Africa on the digital map”, to boost the sub regional economy and to include it in the global digital economy.
Abyster Mobile Money (Cameroon) – Founder: Elvadas NONO WOGUIA
Abyster is a startup using Orange Money / the Orange API as well as ICT to offer an innovative online payment service adapted to African countries. Abyster developed an API allowing merchants to receive payments on their websites and thus make their products profitable. Thanks to partnerships with travel agencies in Cameroon, customers can now book and pay for national bus tickets.
Baobab Entrpreneurship (Senegal) – Founder: Mouhamadou Aly DIA
Baobab Entrepreneurship is conceived around different platforms. CONCREE is a web platform where entrepreneurs can find associates, mentors, and investments to start a business in Africa. Lean Startup is a virtual collaborative workspace tool for team project management. MBOOLOO is a crowdfunding platform where the African diaspora can finance projects. Baobab wants to become Africa’s Linkedin of Entrepreneurship.
Agzakhana (Egypt) – Founder: Ahmed SHABANA
Agzakhana is an online pharmacy that offers a wide selection of products typically found in high-end drug stores, but promises to make the experience much more convenient by using ICT.
On November 12, at the AFRICOM Conference in Cape Town, Orange will announce the 4 winners of the Orange African Social Venture Prize who will be awarded 25,000, 15,000, 10,000 & 10,000 EUR in prize money from within these 10 finalists. Both the 4 winners and the 6 other finalists will go into the ‘Orange Cohort’ acceleration program facilitated by VC4Africa end of November.
The ICT-focused ‘Orange Cohort’ online acceleration program will take place over a period of 8 weeks. The 10 participants will work on critical topics including external environment assessment, customer validation, business model, scaling strategy, marketing and operating plan, financials and fundraising strategy. By the end of the program they will be fully prepared to have a conversation with investors.
VC4Africa has been successfully running online Cohorts for the past 2 years, some in partnership with other organizations and sponsors. This Cohort will be the first time VC4Africa makes its tested online acceleration program available in French, to provide better support for West African entrepreneurs. Upon successful graduation, the enterprises will be showcased on the VC4Africa platform to a group of investors including angels, seed and early stage venture capital investors and impact funds, all part of the VC4Africa Investor Network
Source: Vc4Africa Blog
