Nescafé announced the four finalists of the 2015 Get
Started Challenge, an initiative that aims to inspire young African
entrepreneurs to generate innovative ideas that will create value for
society.
Between April and June, almost 2,000 of ideas in the areas
of technology, health, art and culture, community development and the
environment, were collected from 18 to 30 year olds across Côte
d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon.
After a rigorous selection process, the public voted for the top four entries on the brand’s Facebook page:
 |
| Nescafé |
Dare Adu, a young man from Nigeria, aims to help widows
and orphans to become financially independent through a healthy snack
business.
Moïse Compaoré, from Burkina Faso, wants to help reduce
the number of avoidable deaths by providing key medicines to patients in
emergency wards. Ivorian Pierre Nahoa intends to create a platform
providing local language courses in Côte d’Ivoire and beyond.
Finally, Korotoumou Sidibé, a young woman from Mali,
dreams of eradicating food insecurity by improving the shelf life of
food products through better packaging.
These young entrepreneurs will be coached by influential
African bloggers via live Google Hangouts; a platform that allows both
voice and video conversations from any computer with internet
connection. The shortlisted candidates will then present the business
case for their idea in front of a jury of leading African entrepreneurs,
who will select the overall winner.
The jury consists of Toyosi Akerele-Ogunisji, founder of
the RISE Networks Social Enterprise; Fred Swaniker, founder of the
African Leadership Academy; and Adama Ndiaye, the fashion designer
behind Adama Paris and founder of Dakar Fashion Week.
“We can’t wait to see what these dreams are really made
of,” said Fred Swaniker. “Each of them has the potential to greatly
contribute to positively shape the future of Africa.”
The winner will receive USD 30,000 worth of financial support and mentoring to turn his dream into reality.
“I want you to believe in yourself, have passion for what
you do, be humble to people, go around and talk to people about your
dream and I guarantee you’ll become successful”, this is the
encouragement from last year’s winner. Muazu Adamu, a 21
year-old-student from Nigeria, won $20,000 towards implementing his
dream of lighting up Africa by boosting power produced from power
generators. Muazu and his partner, Solomon, will soon begin a mentorship
and idea creation training programme in Nigeria to help them manage
their business
No comments:
Post a Comment