The African Innovation Prize

Log in or register to follow or vote for this project.

The African Innovation Prize encourages student entrepreneurship and innovation by running business plan competitions in African universities supported by training and mentoring programmes.

Standings & Awards

591 out of 591 in Africa
268 out of 268 in Economic Dev
574 out of 574 in Pilot
992 out of 992 in Charitable
4003 out of 4003 Overall

0

VOTES

The AIP Team

Innovation, enterprise and responsible business are crucial for sustainable development and growth in Africa.

What we do.

The African Innovation Prize (AIP) aims to spur a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship amongst African university students in 3 key ways;

Teaching the skills of business and enterprise through tailored training programs
Running regional and national business plan competitions with seed funding prizes to transform ideas into enterprises
Establishing an ongoing mentor-mentee program linking local entrepreneurs with students who have excelled in our business plan competitions

Why we do it.

Entrepreneurship is at the heart of every country's story of development. Students and young people represent the future on which a nation's development, growth and participation in the global economy are dependent. In many African countries where the paradigm of wealth creation has been largely extractive, a move from extracting value to creating value is needed to move countries towards models of responsible business and long term sustainable growth and development.

Start up and growth.

In 2010, AIP was piloted in the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in Rwanda, becoming the country’s first business plan competition aimed at University students. Despite recognition that business creation can play a key role in economic development, there is minimal exposure to enterprise concepts in Rwandan Universities. AIP seeks to fill this gap. We have since expanded to operate in 3 Rwandan Universities, reaching 20,000 students. Alongside the business plan competition, we run training workshops and a mentoring program to enable students to further develop their ventures. Central to our innovation is the commitment to use and support local talent - our training and mentoring is tailored to local contexts and delivered by local business people. AIP is looking to expand into Sierra Leone and Nigeria, with long term plans to scale to become a pan-African initiative.

The power of enterprise.

Our program encourages students to see enterprise initiatives not just as an income source, but as a cornerstone to development.In this way they can make a wider contribution to their communities, growing their region to prosperity. We believe this is the most strategic way to create sustainable, long-term growth.

FIVE PROJECT QUESTIONS Required (60 - 90 minutes)

1. What is your innovation?

AIP aims to catalyse a culture of local innovation and entrepreneurship amongst African university students by teaching the hard and soft skills of business and enterprise and by delivering seed funding and mentoring through regional and national business planning competitions. Our innovation is to harness the largely untapped talent, potential and entrepreneurial spirit that exists within African Universities and to walk with students down the path from idea, to enterprise, to job creation.

2. Who gains the most?

University students in Africa are the major beneficiaries in this project – gaining skills in enterprise development and the potential to win seed funding to start up their own enterprises. The local community and region stand to gain the most in the long term, as the goal of AIP is to develop a culture of entrepreneurship and to promote sustainable, locally driven business models which create value and build capacity.

3. Who pays?

AIP is currently run on public and private donations from sources in the UK, USA and Africa. Human resources are provided voluntarily by UK and African University students, and by local entrepreneurs in the regions we work. We believe AIP represents a low cost means of investing in a region’s economic development. A small investment at the beginning of approximately £1000/university can spur a culture of entrepreneurship, innovation and business amongst University students.

4. What is your success?

During the two years AIP has operated, we have created a strong culture of enterprise and innovation amongst participating Universities. This has facilitated the development of Enterprise Clubs and a spin-off high school business plan competition. We have also catalysed the creation of new businesses through our business plan competition. Our Grand Winner in 2010 established a company specialising in ecological waste management and our 2011 winner has just registered his horticultural business.

5. How will you do it?

We have already successfully delivered the AIP program in Universities across Rwanda. The competition has been created to be pan-African, and our next phase of development will focus on expanding into new geographies. Based on our curriculum and mentoring programmes in Rwanda, we are designing a blueprint for training packages that can be rolled out across Universities in Africa, alongside the business plan competition, and then tailored according to the local context.