As Venture Nation, we seek to highlight and explore open programs for aspiring entrepreneurs, venture founders and developers. This is why we run a weekly “Competitions” series that highlights all the top startup competitions, and any other types of competitions and events in Africa and the rest of the world.
Below are some exciting opportunities to tap into this week.
2020 VC4A Venture Showcase – Seed
Deadline: 11 September 2020
VC4A Venture Showcase is looking for 10 innovative early-stage startups to showcase their business to the world. The startups should be based in Africa and their tech-enabled solutions should already be on the market.
VC4A Venture Showcase Seed is the sister program of the annual VC4A Venture Showcase Serie A. Between 2017-2019, VC4A selected 60 scale-ups from across the continent as part of 4 showcase programs, resulting in a number of Series A deals totaling over $100M.
Building on this success, the ‘VC4A Venture Showcase – Seed’ – in collaboration with AWS Activate, AfriLabs, and ABAN – is a central component to support investors connecting with early-stage ventures.
This is an exclusive opportunity to introduce your company at once to everyone who’s anyone in Africa’s early-stage investment space.
Annual Cisco Youth Leadership Award
Deadline: 11:59pm EDT Sunday, 20 Sept 2020
Global Citizen and Cisco are looking to recognize youth leaders fighting to end extreme poverty. The Global Citizen Prize: Cisco Youth Leadership Award honors an individual aged 18-30 who has contributed meaningfully towards the goal of ending extreme poverty. The award includes a US$250,000 prize paid to the organization to which the individual contributes.
Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation 2021
To stimulate, celebrate and reward innovation and entrepreneurship in SSA
Deadline: 14 September 2020
The Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, is Africa’s biggest prize dedicated to engineering innovation. It awards crucial commercialization support to ambitious African innovators developing scalable engineering solutions to local challenges, demonstrating the importance of engineering as an enabler of improved quality of life and economic development.
The aim of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation is to stimulate, celebrate, and reward innovation and entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa.
Applications are invited from entrepreneurs and engineers in sub-Saharan Africa who have developed an innovative product or service that can provide scalable solutions to local challenges, with a particular emphasis on sustainable social and economic development. Applicants with engineering-related innovations from all disciplines are invited to enter, whether or not the applicant themselves have an engineering background.
A seven-month period of tailored training and mentoring culminates in a showcase event where a winner is selected to receive GBP 25,000 along with three runners-up, who are each awarded GBP 10,000.
If you have any event recommendations for us to add to the list, or next week’s, please let us know in the comments below or send us an email. Please notify us by the Friday of the week before the event.
Tatenda is a Storyteller and Public Relations, strategist. Currently a Director at The Hype Squad, a creative storytelling agency in Zimbabwe. She is passionate about exploring and understanding all things to do with freedom, particularly freedom of expression.