adminHarare at the Rotary Centre. The event was organised by an organisation called Apps4Africa which apparently has been running su ch programmes at continental level for the past three years. This year’s challenge was calling out all technology entrepreneurs, inventors and social entrepreneurs to take part in the grand challenge which seeks to promote the most promising and viable project.
The grand prize has no ceiling too; Jamme mentioned that there will be various resources pooled to fund projects should any require excess support.
“The Apps4Africa competition began in late 2009 as an annual programme to support African social entrepreneurs using technology to solve societal problems. Through this programme, to date we’ve been able to offer funding to 12 participants from nine African countries”, said Jamme.
The event was well attended by way over 100 entrepreneurs who debated positively on the best ways to prop up their business as start-ups. What was quiet intriguing was to see other contributors with no technological background or conventionally none tech savvy contributing Ideas on various technology spectrums. Ideas were being pulled through well with hard core technologists like application developers and designers fitting in well in the same puzzle.
Jamme was quick to say that this challenge was not for developing apps, but rather applications that develop our community and meet our day to day challenges. Appfrica, the parent company of Apps4Africa, works with local technologists to provide solutions to some of the continent’s toughest problems.
This allows our partners to draw from their expertise and understanding of local issues. Some of these solutions include efforts in transparency, open data, and tech for governance.
“Apps4Africa has run successfully for the past three years in partnership with the US Department of State. Drawing upon that feedback, as of 2012, our new model means there will be no longer a strictly defined number of winners, rather we’ll review every application and judge it based on sustainability, scalability and profitability in addition to social impact.
We feel such companies are in the best position for growth, and thus ready for our funding and acceleration programme which aims to prime them for follow-on investment. The competition is open to any company, startup or innovator living and working in Africa said a communiqué with the organisation,” an official source affirmed.
In an interview Jamme said she was very fascinated by the feedback and saw a lot of potential from Zimbabwe.
“I would like to see the next top CEO from Zimbabwe, there is a lot of creativity and resilience from you and I know you can make it.”
Given that climate change and adaptation strategies this is a pan-African problem, Apps4Africa went to 15 African countries across the continent (Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, DRC, Botswana, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe) to hold brainstorming and collaborative workshops. During these Apps4Africa local events, teams were formed, big ideas were conceived, and the feasibility of solutions was discussed.
These workshops proved to be an invaluable resource, and all parties concerned with the climate change issue were able to speak to each other on an equal platform. The brainstorming session led to some very insightful nuggets on how to start your own business as an entrepreneur.
Chief above all were these pointers like idea creation, research, business development, marketing and the financing. The co-ordinator was quiet upbeat about these five guiding principles and pointers to attract sourced investors into coming on board to fund the project. These are the major points where most SMEs and prospective business fall off. Jamme reiterated that scoring on these would guarantee high chances of project funding. Appfrica was founded in 2008 in Kampala, Uganda as a company focused on three drivers of growth for Africa’s knowledge economy, mentoring young technologists, investing in their ideas with time, attention, and capital, while highlighting their successes across the continent.
Winners of the 2011 challenge included a Zimbabwean agriculture practitioner, who took third position in the southern Africa region for an application concept called UnsApp. This year’s competitors can fill up their once off online forms and submit from this website address http://apps4africa.org/2012/enter.php. She also hinted that the next big thing will be http://africagathering.org, a platform based in London pushing promoting creativity.
The writer is a computing specialist with TechnoMag. More on our Facebook page http://facebook.com/technomagzw. Like our page for free airtime and giveaways. Website http://tech.co.zw Twitter @technomagzw.
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