Saturday, 19 November 2016

Business Funding: Innovation Prize for Africa 2017

Five years ago, AIF initiated the IPA to support African innovators by unlocking their potential and catalyzing the African innovation spirit, promoting home-grown solutions for Africa’s prosperity.
We seek to:
  • Increase Africa’s prosperity through investing in home-grown innovations and entrepreneurship
  • Strengthen African innovation ecosystems through our platforms and mobilize a network of innovation enablers, driving business development and cross-collaboration.
  • Demonstrate that African ingenuity exists at a Pan African level through honouring outstanding innovations and recognizing their positive impact in Africa and beyond
Today, IPA is a leading platform on the African innovation landscape; it has a network of 6000+ African innovators spanning 50 countries; 45 of the continent’s top innovators and 35+ innovation enablers.

The Awards:

  • GRAND PRIZE WINNER: US$ 100,000
  • SECOND PRIZEWINNER: US$ 25,000
  • SPECIAL PRIZE FOR SOCIAL IMPACT INNOVATION: US$ 25,000

The Priority Areas:

The IPA 2017 recognizes innovative breakthroughs that unlock new African potential in the following five priority areas: agriculture and agribusiness; environment, energy and water; health and well-being; ICTs; manufacturing and service industry.

Criteria for Selection:

  • In the overall assessment of winning applications, the winners are established with reference to:
  • The uniqueness of their innovations and superiority to similar or alternative solutions;
  • The size and nature of positive social impact that can be attributed to application of their innovation;
  • The potential of the innovation to become a commercial success or sustainable (for social innovations).