Orange teamed up with startup funding platform VC4Africa to set up an online acceleration program for the top ICT entrepreneurs from the 2014 Orange African Social Venture Prize. The programme will help entrepreneurs position themselves for growth and prepare for investment.
The Orange African Social Venture Prize rewards entrepreneurs developing products or services that use ICT in an innovative way to meet the needs of Africans in fields such as health, agriculture, education, energy, industry or trade. Applications for the prize closed in September.
New this year is that Orange will offer a professional and expert coaching not only to the winners but also to the 10 finalists of the Orange African Social Venture Prize. These 10 most promising enterprises from the application pool for the Orange Cohort 2014 will get an intensive online acceleration program facilitated by VC4Africa.
Within these 10 finalists are of course the 4 winners who will be awarded the following prizes: 25,000 EUR, 15.000 EUR and 10.000 EUR. A new special prize of 10,000 EUR will be awarded to the finalist who presents a project using an Orange API. In addition, the first prize will be offered a patent submission in the country of the project’s deployment.
Orange Cohort facilitated by VC4Africa
The Orange Cohort 2014, an ICT-focused online acceleration program for competition finalists, will take place over a period of 8 weeks. 10 selected participants announced in November 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 organisations 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.
Orange African Social Venture Prize
Over the past three years, more than 1,500 projects have been submitted for the Orange African Social Venture Prize. Operating in 18 countries in Africa, Orange serves close to 100 million customers. One of Orange’s main priorities is to improve connectivity, particularly in rural areas, and to introduce innovative mobile-based solutions. To achieve this, the Group supports entrepreneurs, small and middle size firms by facilitating access to finance, supporting structures for incubation and giving access to tools for digital development. Since 2010, Orange is a partner of the CTIC Dakar incubator, a reference in Western Africa in terms of ICT development. In April 2014, the CIPME Niger incubator, initiated by Orange, opened its doors to start-ups in the fields of ICT, renewable energy and the environment.
In a few weeks we’ll share the announcement of the 10 Orange African Social Venture Prize 2014 finalists going into the accelerator program with VC4Africa. Keep an eye on the VC4Africa blog for more!
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