3 Startups Emerge Winners of 1st Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa
The first Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa has been given to three entrepreneurs from Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe.
Each will get a grant of EUR250,000 (US$250,000), international exposure, and long-term mentoring.
The Kofi Annan Award seeks to assist in achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 3: “Good Health and Wellbeing” with its emphasis on the rapid digitalization of the African continent. In order to address global concerns, it questions more conventional developmental approaches and emphasizes creative, disruptive, and entrepreneurial methods.
38 African nations submitted more than 330 applications, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences hosted an awards ceremony last week in Vienna.
Members of the high-level jury, as well as local and foreign guests, attended the event, which was overseen by Austrian Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer.
The three startups that were named winners were Flare from Kenya, which uses a digital platform to quickly coordinate ambulance services, MOBicure from Nigeria, whose myPaddi service is a covert counseling network that aims to improve young people’s sexual health, and Vaxiglobal from Zimbabwe, which develops online tools to facilitate widely successful vaccination campaigns.
Each winner will get a grant of EUR250,000 (US$250,000), access to global exposure, and ongoing coaching.
The Federal Chancellery rewards innovative African entrepreneurs with EUR250,000 apiece as part of the Kofi Annan Award, and it also helps them obtain attention. By doing this, we give them the possibility to connect with established businesses and advance their projects and ideas even more successfully. It gives me great pleasure and pride to serve as the project’s sponsor. In my best wishes and best wishes for the victors’ future endeavors, Nehammer stated.
