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The Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation was founded in 2014 to support innovators and entrepreneurs across sub-Saharan Africa who are creating a better world through innovation. You could be one of the 16 entrepreneurs shortlisted from across the continent who are building engineering solutions to local challenges that can be scaled globally. Really, the DNA of Africa Prize is Africans solving Africa's problems. And you should apply if you believe that's your solution is, first of all, solving an important social problem on the continent and secondly, on the edge of innovation. We provide eight months of tailored training and mentoring support to accelerate your startup. You should apply to the Africa Prize because as an engineer, you're very good on the technical side. But by coming to the Africa Prize you get to meet people who also understand how to build businesses. So you get to learn how to do marketing, how to do your sales, how to do your fundraising, all the necessary skills that are required to run a successful business. You will receive access to the Academy's network of high profile engineers and business experts in the UK, and Africa, as well as our Africa Prize alumni network. The Africa Prize community is a community of peer-to-peer mentorship, external mentors, access to training, access to resources, access to grants. So when you apply, if you are shortlisted, you don't even have to win. You're amongst the 16. You get access to all of this. You now belong to a community that will work with you, that will continue to support you, promote you, and help you to be successful. The programme then culminates in a live pitch showcase event, Where the winner will receive £25,000 in funding. The runners up receive £10,000 and an additional “One to Watch” award of £5,000 is decided by an audience vote for the remaining shortlist. The Africa Prize is run by the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering, and has directly supported over 140 entrepreneurs who have created over 28,800 jobs, secured over $39 million USD in third party funding and have impacted over 10 million lives. I would recommend applying for the Africa Prize because I believe that the process is transformational. When I won the Prize, it was really exciting. The publicity was amazing. I was on BBC, I was on Forbes. I had interviews from big organisations. That exposure was exciting for both me and my team. But the value of the Prize is much more than the money. One innovator can change a community. A network can transform a continent. Join some of the brightest minds in tackling the greatest global challenges with the Africa Prize network. We can't wait to work with you.

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello everyone it's great to be with you this afternoon my name is dr shanice omara and i'm going to be your host for this afternoon i'm originally a mechanical engineer now broadcaster of science technology and innovation and a keen advocate of diversity and inclusion so i'm delighted to be part of this event which sets a high standard in widening the public perception of engineers and engineering now before we begin if you're watching on a mobile device the platform is best viewed in landscape rather than portrait and we have a packed lineup for you today there are multiple ways to get involved watch the pitches and vote for your favorites ask questions to our speakers and view the interactive showcase on the right hand tab and you'll find all of that below the live event stream and now i'm delighted to welcome hayatan salem cbe chief executive of the royal academy of engineering and chief executive of the queen elizabeth prize for engineering foundation to tell us a little bit more about the africa prize thank you so much cinny it's great to have you back again as our mc for today distinguished guests africa prize shortlist finalists and judges a very warm welcome to you all my name is hilton sillam and i'm the chief executive of the royal academy of engineering and the queen elizabeth price for engineering foundation and it's an absolute pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to you today on this momentous occasion to celebrate the ingenuity the determination and excellence in engineering innovation that we have seen from the 16 entrepreneurs who have taken part in this year's africa prize i'm also delighted to welcome our speakers and guests who you're going to be hearing from during today's event we have a lot to look forward to the academy has a long belief that engineering is a fundamental enabler of sustainable development this year we're marking a whole decade since the publication of the engineers for africa report a report that identified the scale of engineering capacity needs in sub-saharan africa and prompted the creation of the africa programmes that we run at the academy the africa prize for engineering innovation is one of those three programs and we designed to stimulate to celebrate and to reward innovation and entrepreneurship across sub-saharan africa since 2014 the program has awarded crucial commercialization support directly to almost 120 ambitious african entrepreneurs and innovators who have developed scalable engineering solutions to local challenges demonstrating the importance of engineering in improving quality of life and enabling economic development each year we receive applications from hundreds of innovators across sub-saharan africa and our esteemed judges have the very challenging but very important task of selecting just 16 to participate in the program i can tell you it gets very tense in that judging room over an eight-month period the 16 strong shortlists participate in tailored training sessions they receive peer and product mentoring and hone their business plan so that they can progress their innovation to that next level and in the process to increase a scale of impact so every year that process that journey culminates in this showcase event the africa prize final and today our four finalists will pitch their businesses and just one will be selected to earn the coveted title of the africa prize 2022 winner and to take home the winning prize of 25 000 pounds you heard me right you will also have the opportunity to hear one minute pictures from 12 of the innovators on the shortlist and to vote for the pitch that most resonates with you and whoever receives the most votes will receive 5 000 pounds this year's shortlist are working on sustainable solutions to local challenges that range from access to healthcare farming resilience reducing waste and energy efficiency and i have absolutely no doubt that you are going to be very inspired by what you hear today of course our collaboration and support for the entrepreneurs does not end after this final we believe that one innovator can change a community and a network can transform a continent today we have an alumni community of over a hundred talented innovators many of whom continue to engage with this program to support new members of this shortlist alumni have been able to apply for business grants mentoring and other opportunities to continue to support the growth and development of their innovations we are incredibly proud of the africa prize entrepreneurs and we've seen over the years how their innovations have contributed to addressing global development challenges nurturing thriving commercial companies has a significant role to play in sustainable development by enabling entrepreneurs to create more jobs to generate better economic prospects and ultimately to contribute to the achievement of the un sustainable development goals our alumni community continue to share their successes with the network there are many examples i'm only going to have time to name a few but they include the ceo of reedy capsules olubenga olympanjo who was an inaugural finalist for the earthshot prize which i'm sure you've heard of it's the global environmental award championing planet repair through human ingenuity presented by no less than his royal highness to duke of cambridge beth kyogi from magic water was featured in brave blue world a netflix documentary exploring the technologies and the innovations that have the potential to solve the world's water crises co-founders sesi nam dagadu and zara abe who had their innovations new code chosen as the national digital addressing system of liberia offering a mobile app that solves a problem of a lack of addresses by generating a unique alphanumerical code that can be used as an address for a particular locational home so cool the determination the ambition and the ability of our entrepreneurs to positively impact the lives of their communities cities and countries inspires us to continue our investment in them and i would like to record my thanks on behalf of the academy to those who have generously supported the africa prize over the last eight years especially the uk government's global challenges research fund and the shell centenary scholarship fund this support enables us to provide a platform for african innovation to build businesses not only for profit but also for purpose and for the well-being of the communities and the economies in which they operate we're looking for new partners to come on board and support the africa prize in a range of ways from funding all the way through to opening up new networks so if you're interested to discuss that further we'd love to hear from you please do get in touch with a member of the academy team or via our website our alumni are creating incredible social impact at scale and are projected to improve the lives of more than three million people within the next five years as of 2019 cumulatively they had raised over 14 million us dollars and created one and a half thousand jobs over fifty percent of which were for women and a significant proportion of those being filled by young people or those with a disability the prize aims to amplify those benefits on a local national and continent-wide level and we've secured over 2500 pieces of media coverage since our launch i am sure you've seen some of those if you haven't had a chance to do so already i really do recommend that you visit the interactive showcase that is being created as part of this event and learn more about this year's brilliant cohort of entrepreneurs prepare to be impressed so thank you again for joining us and enjoy the final i have a feeling it's going to be a very special afternoon shinny it's back to you thank you hyaton now let's hear from the head judge malcolm bryndid malcolm is frng and a fellow of the royal academy of engineering chair of engineering uk and past president of the energy institute he served as a uk prime minister's business ambassador a member of the china council for international cooperation on environment and department and until 2017 served as chair of the shell foundation malcolm is also a fellow of the institution of civil engineers and the institution of mechanical engineers and was awarded a cbe in 2002 he's going to tell us a little bit more about the africa prize judges as well as what he believes makes a great winner for the africa prize over to you malcolm thank you shinny and good afternoon everyone i'm thrilled you're all here for the africa prize 2022 final event my name is malcolm bryndid and i chair the africa prize judging panel and i've been honored to be an africa prize judge since the beginning in 2014 and i've watched the prize go from strength to strength with constant improvements to the training we offer and finding new ways to support our alumni group which as hayatan said is is almost 120 now every year the africa prize grows and it's moved beyond those countries which have well established support for engineering and entrepreneurs and we now receive entries from an amazing 37 countries and we were really pleased that this year's shortlist of 16 included entrepreneurs from togo and the republic of congo for the first time through the academy's female only pipeline program each year we see an increased number of female applicants which is excellent to see and this year we're delighted to have eight women among the 16 on the shortlist so we've hit 50 percent for the first time in the history of the price now all 16 on the shortlist have received eight months of training and mentoring and after today they become part of our alumni support network with an ever increasing number of really high quality applications judging gets ever more difficult every year and each year we read amazingly varied applications about innovations that span the whole breadth of engineering from advanced software platforms to highly practical machinery each aiming to solve a problem in the innovators community all these entries are technically reviewed and then we as judges discuss them deliberate sometimes actually quite often passionately argue and we finally choose the africa prize shortlist of 16 for the training and mentoring they've had so what is it we look for ideally we want applications that have that magic combination of commercial potential scalability and genuine engineering innovation that could really help sub-saharan african development plus a lead applicant with entrepreneurial flair and the self-awareness to assemble the right team around them it's a high bar which all 16 you'll hear from today have passed as judges one of the things we really love is seeing the progress the shortlisted entrepreneur entrepreneurs make during the program from their first application to their final pitch today so thanks to the trainers at viridian the coms team april 6 and proof and the fantastic academy network of volunteers who mentor our short list we've seen real growth in all these entrepreneurs business understanding technology maturity and confidence we've also been seriously impressed by their determination to build sustainable scalable businesses in fast-changing and complex markets and on top of all that the resilience they've shown to pivot and adapt their businesses over the past couple of years despite the pandemic there can only be one winner of the africa prize 2022 but all 16 of these entrepreneurs are winners and should feel incredibly proud of what they've achieved we look forward to watching them all succeed over the next years with that i'd like to introduce my fellow judges who i'm delighted to to be judging today with first rebecca ellen chung from cameroon and the us the founder and ceo of apps tech and i o spaces and a serial technology entrepreneur herself who is passionate about promoting technology in africa i can see that rebecca is going to i know she's going to join us very shortly i think she's having some comms uh problems at the moment next doctor ibalola amal hai belola from nigeria in the uk the principal consultant of lonnie deck global services ibilola is passionate about empowering mentoring and coaching women and youth for positive transformation dr john lazar from south africa in the uk co-founder of enzo capital and chair of what three words and raspberry pi foundation john is a software engineer investor and business leader focused on technology and entrepreneurship to generate positive impact next uh let's see away from dr alexandre buanfino from italy and the uk hi alexandra senior advisor at the global innovations fund alexandre is a passionate advocate for social change and for business as a force for good and finally we're thrilled to welcome barbara iai from the us as our guest judge today barbara is the founding managing partner of unicorn growth capital an early sage vc firm that invests in fintech d5 and web 3 companies to transform the financial infrastructure of the digital economy barbara has founded invested in scaled and advised fintech and financial services globally i can't think of anyone better to join us thank you barbara for doing so today i really look forward to choosing the africa prize winner with you all we know it's going to be tough so good luck to all our fantastic finalists and i now hand back to your event host dr shiny samara over to you shinny thank you malcolm in the first half of the event you'll hear from the four africa prize 2022 finalists each of the four finalists you're about to meet will deliver a five-minute pitch presentation after their pitch is finished we'll bring the finalists in for a q a session with the africa prize judges led by the chair of judges malcolm bryndid if you'd like to ask any questions please add them to the ask a question tab you can also click the thumbs up to upvote other audience members questions once all four finalists have had their say there'll be an audience vote to select your favorite finalists and the results will be shared with the judges as they deliberate the winner this year we're delighted that there's gender parity on the shortlist 50 of the shortlist are women for the first time ever and just a reminder don't forget you can share this event on your socials with the hashtag africaprise and don't forget to tag at r a e n g global now let's hear from the africa prize 2022 finalists first up for you today we have nora meguero from bacter box based in kenya vaxxerbox is a small mobile solar-powered fridge that safely stores and transports temperature-sensitive medicines such as vaccines for use in field vaccinations and off-grid hospitals during the covert 19 pandemic the challenges faced by healthcare practitioners and supply chains in distributing temperature sensitive medicine was highlighted globally and remains a problem for many types of vaccines nora and her team developed the baxi box to help get essential vaccines to communities where cold chain infrastructure is lacking to ensure patients don't miss the opportunity to be fully immunised they're now running three pilot projects with raw health care facilities to evaluate the vaccine boxes features and efficacy let's hear from nora [Music] [Music] when i gave back to my daughter in 2018 i moved to live in a rural community in kenya i faced a lot of challenges trying to get her vaccinated most of the times when we went to the clinic we were turned away because the vaccines had spoiled but they're simply not available unfortunately i'm not the only mother who faces these challenges fifty percent of all the global vaccines produced go to waste most of them in africa due to the cold chain gaps logistical gaps and energy excess gaps and the aftermath of this is that 30 million children still suffer within the continent from vaccine preventable diseases each year while 1.2 billion africans are yet to be vaccinated against covenanting today with 200 000 hospitals delivery centers and pharmacies still lacking access to adequate culture africa's healthcare has never been more addressed my name is nora maguiro i'm the co-founder and ceo of a team that is developing baxi box an ideal solution to these challenges vaxbox is a portable iot labeled solar vaccine fringe the fridge is so portable that it is mounted on a motorbike a bicycle a boat or even be carried so that heat sensitive medical items such as vaccines blood for transfusion and insulin can quickly be deployed to remote and heart-to-rich communities while still being kept in just the right temperature at all times vaxibox is ensuring that each and every single person no matter where they are get access to equitable healthcare the most unique thing about vaccinebox is that it's iot and ai enabled it's embedded with real-time data collection monitoring and stock management capability wherever the fridge goes it collects various data sets such as the temperature and the location of the fridge it also tracks the vaccines from connection to delivery to promote traceability of these medical items this data is collected and relayed to a phone application and a backend platform vaxibox also uses machine learning with all this data that is collected it lands it predicts and it forecasts the energy consumption of the fridge the maintenance schedule for the fridge as well as the future vaccine stock requirements for the facility in 2021 we developed the first working prototype and piloted it out in three rural facilities in kenya we saw staggering and promising success so in 2022 we advanced the design of vaccines we produced a few advanced pieces in kenya today and as of now we're preparing to launch a light skill pilot in partnership with the mcqueen county government in kenya with the new advanced version of vaccine box we've applied for two patents one for the fridge and one for the iot solution we're also working on getting pre-qualified by who so that vaccine books can be supplied to each and every single facility in need within the continent but our biggest success is that this year we achieved first revenue we sold five vaccine box fridges at a revenue of eight thousand four hundred and twenty one pounds our business model targets b2b customers to supply private and faith-based health facilities pharmacies and coaching logistics as well as b2bg customers to supply vacablex units to public health facilities that are financed by development organizations like unicef by doing this we'll generate a revenue of 2006 pounds per fridge that is embedded with just temperature monitoring iot capability so if a user wants to unlock the premium services such as the stock management and energy monitoring they pay a monthly subscription of 34 pounds i have the honor of leading a team of two other co-founders in the healthcare and engineering space together we lead a product development team that comprises of mechanical automation and electronic engineering a full stack developer and a finance manager my team is backed by a pool of experienced mentors and advisors from engineering healthcare product development and business development space we are seeking 450 000 pounds in convertible note so that within the next 12 months we get to increase our production capacity and supply box box units to our growing waitlist we will test out various commercialization models and also acquire w2 certification to allow us to scale vaccinates in the whole continent we are also seeking partners in the large-scale manufacturing sector and also partners in the global health care space so we invite you to partner with us to ensure that vaxibox will impact the life of each and every single child and adult to get fully vaccinated we invite you to partner with us to ensure that we bring the culture gap within the african space thanks nora um that's a great presentation it's a great great product to see and i can see how it's going to serve a real need so we're going to q a and and for this for you i'm going to ask the first one which is it's great to see that you've sold five vaccine boxes your business plan that we saw showed quite a scale up to i think over a hundred you were hoping to sell this year how are you going to drive both the increase in manufacture and the increase in sales uh thanks so much for that malcolm so for the next short-term period within six to 12 months we'll maintain the same manufacturing but just ensure that these quality assurance with the fridges that we're producing but then we're working having our own local assembly workshop so that we outsource the key manufacturing components but then for better quality and quality assurance we have we assembled in our own workshop but in the next three to five years we're looking at signing a manufacturer's contract with a company called matsumoto who will do will be a one-stop shop for each and every single thing and also give us the the the quantities that we need to basically up our production capacity but also ensure that the the quality that we require is actually being maintained excellent well good luck with that and now a question from ibilola um congratulations nora well done on your solution could you just tell us a bit more about the software platform and how you intend to leverage the technology to have increase the impact thanks so much for that so uh our software platform is iot and ai enabled in the fact that um wherever the fridge goes is able to collect various data sets like the temperature and also the stock that is being collected the stock of that is being issued and also being received so you see this monitoring solution helps us as the manufacturer to monitor the fridge and give a full after cell support ensure longevity and also reduce the maintenance costs so our support is guaranteed but then also for the end users they get to collect various data sets that are used for planning healthcare programs and also just ensuring traceability for all for the healthcare products that are being released into the market and also uh enabling them to plan all the activities going forth now the ai aspect is what um is the the exciting part because the fridge is uh after a while when the food is at a facility it's able to monitor a facility's operation to literally tell that uh today's a wednesday you have high numbers on wednesday so this fridge with the weather that is available is going to take you uh several hours before maybe it goes off or maybe like you reduce operational opening and closing and for us it literally predicts after how long are we going to replace the battery after how long are we going to replace a certain components also just to ensure that there is longevity for the life of the fridge and also we're able to give a full after-sale support thank you great thank you thank you nora uh and i'm going to actually go to john for uh the next question thanks malcolm nora congratulations that's uh fantastic to see the progress um i i was picking up on malcolm's questions to some extent i'm interested obviously that you say you have two routes to market one is b2b and the other obviously is selling into the government can you talk a little bit more around your progress on interactions with government health departments how are you getting on i know those are generally um quite long processes um how are you finding that and what are the prospects for that um well right now i'm quite positive that we're going to make breakthrough with the government specifically we have negotiated an mou with the mcqueen county government because healthcare in kenya is quite developed so county government is a good starting point to work with the government and uh what macquarie county did is they got the lawyers to drop the mou to the legal part and they pass it to the cabinet so that's where the huddle is because there's so many in the cabinet and so many interests uh but we just need the cabinet to approve and the governor appends a signature and we're in with the government and uh the bit about macquarie is it always takes up various healthcare models that are easily replicated across kenya so if we get mcqueen this mou sign we're sure we're going to replicate the same model uh within kenya because whatever mercury takes up always end up just replicated across kenya and the good thing also is then we also have an in with the who because double hair is looking at us to see if the government government is going to have a buy-in for them to also give us more support and also put a stamp of approval that this product actually can impact the lives and serve the service that is promising thank you thank you thank you norah i'm just looking around to see if any judge i've got a couple of questions from the audience which i'm going to oppose but any of the judges want to come in if not i but really one of the questions is nora the the the whole um reliability of the and really the environmental of benefits i know that you're i think you're going for a solar solar power support to the unit so that it is always available can you say a bit more about that and and how it brings environmental advantages well vaccine box is saving life but also saving the environment mostly just reducing the impacts of climate change by ensuring that there is uh clean energy being used within the healthcare space but then also as a kit that is aimed to exceed its serving life compared to what's already in the market we're reducing the e-waste that normally occurs when this kind of refrigerator refrigerators are introduced in the kenyan market and dumped because there is no service there is no maintenance for them uh since the support is just so fragmented and just has so many gaps so we as we are contributing to clean energy being used in the healthcare space and even can be scaled beyond the healthcare to be used literally any specifics coaching but also reducing the electronic waste um and also by by adopting the iso standards for uh for green manufacturing we're just going to ensure that we reduce the carbon footprint for manufacturing this kind of product and they and also determining that this uh reduced carbon food treatment factory is being implemented also in the african space which not so many people are so conscious apparently thank you nora it's an inspiring product and it's great that you're getting some you're ramping up the sales and manufacture well done and now i'm going to hand back to you shinny to introduce the next finalist thank you nora well done and remember if you have any questions for the finalists pop them into the ask a question tab and we'll do our best to have the judges ask your questions and you can also click the thumbs up to upvote other audience members questions now i'd like to introduce the second africa prize 2022 finalist gail martinez biddy a software engineer from togo and her innovation salome salome is a visa-backed card an account that doesn't require its users to be customers of a specific bank significantly reducing financial costs to give unbanked individuals more access to the digital economy in togo fewer than 10 percent of the population have a bank card gail and her team created the financial product in order to improve financial inclusivity salome customers will be able to buy the card even if they don't have a bank account and top it up with money whether that's cash mobile money or through bank transfers and make purchases both in-store and online because the card is supported by visa and it gives customers access to the global economy with purchases enabled anywhere that ordinary visa cards can be used over to you gail [Music] [Music] hello my name is gail martinez co-founder and ceo of sony we identified the following problems do you know that in togo more than 60 percent have access to mobile money and macro finance services but just 20 percent have access to banking services less than 10 percent have a bank out don't forget this problem of giving change when paying in cash finally we only have 23 percent of internet penetration however those problems also represent many opportunities to tackle there is more than 90 percent who don't have a bank out but there is many transactions through mobile money in the country most online merchants accept cow payments but not move anyone today you necessarily have to have to go to the bank for a simple financial services which cost a lot finally we have more than 90 of smartphone penetration how to tackle those sony bring an amazing solution of physical and retract debate card with a mobile application clients can get the card online or physical in just two minutes the card can be interpocked with mobile money cash deposits or bank accounts in addition to a mobile application we develop a new ssd technology to allow customer top-up and manage your account through usda without having internet customer can also receive money from upwards have salary paid directly through the account send money to other solutions for free we really want to be close to our target customer so our point of sale strategy focuses on involvement of small shop we plan to use ai to analyze customer behavior we did their buying habits and offer them personalized services such as knowing their favorite merchants and showing them automatically commotion coming from them finally we put financial education in the heart of our solution to educate our customers so that they can manage their finances freely and regain control over chairman how are we making money first couch sell and commission on transactions for cards there you have two ways we have b2c sell and b2b sale note that we buy the card at four points so we sell the card to the final client at six pounds and today we launched two months ago and we already have one thousand accounts sold for bid to be sell it's an organization who want to digitalize uh his mission expense or salary payments uh by using our account instead of check so we already signed with one government institution for um 5 000 calls for commission on transaction it depends on the type of the transaction so in general today we are processing uh 35 000 pounds gmd per month and we win around 1 400 pounds um as a revenue we also build solubility community this community helped us to boost our gmv because the members of this community have access to promotions cash back from our nursing partners once we did this we see that in our environment in our ecosystem there is a lot of fintechs who are trying to do the same but they are struggling to have the right partners we are lucky we have visa we have gtp and we also have two bank partners in togo so we decided to build the b2b financial inclusion support program in this program [Music] we support all the entities who want to issue their own prepaid solution so in the program there is a free setup fee we sell the call to the entity at five pounds and we share the revenue uh with them there is four uh forty percent uh for the fintech thirty percent for sodium and thirty percent for the bank actually we already signed with one institution in this program who will get his solution by the end of the next month and we are in progress to sign with two institutions i'm also glad to announce you that solemy is officially recognized as program manager by visa for field tech all this amazing work can't be done without this amazing team that i want to take again today we are asking for 194 000 pounds to order more accounts invest in marketing and communication to pay developer and invest to upgrade our mobile application uh to recruit sales representative financial engineers i.t accountants we need also capacity bridging in pci dsa certification also partnership building for geographic expansion i would be happy to talk further about solely so feel free to reach out thank you so much for a cashless world thank you gail that's an excellent pitch well done and an exciting product and and growth this time i'm going to pass to barbara for the first question hi gail how are you um thank you for this wonderful presentation um so i've i've focused a lot on fintech companies so really glad to see that you're doing this question couple questions on the technology um are you uh leveraging apis from banks telcos like how how much sort of in the ecosystem are you leveraging with respect to apis to build sort of an interoperable platform so that these cards can be used across different technologies because as you can imagine the payment sector is quite fragmented um and then and then a question related to that is really with respect to your b2b strategy how are you going to um work with uh how are you going to get fintechs and and other you know others outside your ecosystem to use this technology from a from a b2b perspective hi everyone thank you so much for the question um for uh for apis uh that's true um we are working with a lot of guys can we telco apis to allow um our client to talk about with um with your mobile money we are also working to bank api so that we can process those transactions that uh our clients are making through your mobile money so we have our own apis and coming we are communicating also with telco ones and also uh the bank processor uh apis to build our solution and for um for the second question can you please repeat yeah so as you do this b2b strategy right you're going to be opening up your api to multiple people how are you how are you planning on doing that okay well um first of all for those uh b2b financial um support is once we already launched our fed solution we see that there we have visa as partner we have the processor as fashion and we have two bank sponsors and we see that there is a lot of fintechs and macro finances now who is trying to to issue your own credit cards so we also have already our own applications and apis we said that we will share share those with them so that they can um issue quickly their solution within three months and instead of having them uh as competitors we'll have them as we will build together solutions so that we solemnly possess a lot of transactions and then when visa has us it's also help all those um macro finances and fintechs that we manage for sharing them our apis uh we build them in a way that um it is really a macro micro service oriented so that we can uh share them out yes they can use our mobile application also to do uh their their carbon your card management because at the end of the day they have they want a a prepaid with mobile applications that can be managed or those that their client can use to manage uh those cards thank you thanks gail that's that's a great answer i'm going to ask alexandra now for the next question hi gail great pitch i really enjoyed it thank you so much just uh just to pick up on some of the things you said you talked about partnership building for market expansion and i understand that you really understand togo and you know where you're going with this and you can build a community around that particular market and i also know that you've mentioned that market expansion might be in banana and burkina faso and so on but how are you planning that is that through franchises would you open your own offices how do you how will you manage to keep the innovation together thank you thank you alexandra for the question um for the expansion first we want to have a good coverage integral and those markets has been in universal guinea are facing the same problem um like togo so the solution also sweet for um clients on on those countries to go there we um technically we already have partnership that we need and uh for business the way we we are open so sometimes for example in benin we will open an office there and uh in other countries we can be represented with other companies uh also that we are open we are not um we don't have an idea uh fixed on that uh but we already have um um as visa visa also um in our contract with visa they will also help us in those expansions so in the right time you will see together how we can you know implement those solutions on those countries who are facing the same problem as um as we are facing in togo great thank you gail um i just want to check any judges wish to come yeah john over to you girl congratulations it's fantastic to see the progress and i had a question around growth it's great to see that you're generating revenue and i think you said that's 1400 pounds or a couple of thousand pounds um from the material i've seen you're predicting revenue by the end of 2022 of more than 400 000 pounds and then i think up to a million doubling that into 2023. um what's your growth plan and in particular how will you get to those revenue numbers what marketing do you need how are you going to get the scale thank you john first question uh well for our um our scheduling um right now when we launch we just have our close uh customer and by the end of the day we plan to have um around 20 000 customers because we have the mass market and we also have companies who uh use our account to digitalize the um your process of giving mission experience on that program we also already signed with a government institution here in chicago called um office together we said uh we will buy uh for example five thousand uh calls for his um agents so that his agent can use those tags and on those cards they will put a lot of money it will also increase our revenue and we also have other companies like that uh we are in signing progress for those companies also to simplify their uh process of giving uh mission expense so that we will increase our revenue and also for our um with our revenue sharing in the b2b financial inclusion support we will also increase revenue because there is right now um we have an instant like we are discussing with the five uh fintechs fintech sorry and there is also a lot of confidence that we will involve on this program and we have 30 percent on all the um their commission on all on on their transaction which will increase also our our our revenues one thing also to add is we are allowing people to have easy access to meaning of payment and we are also our building solution to um allow all um most of merchants to accept those mean of payments so uh we have also um um simple pay which is um a facilitator of an aquarium solution which allow merchants to accept calls if it is online or if it is in physical in store so that we will have a lot of usage of our codes and then transactions will be increased thank you gail that's great well answered and exciting plans and growth so far and back to you shinny to introduce the next finalist well done gail now another reminder that if you have any questions for the finalists please add them to the ask a question tab you can also click the thumbs up to upvote other audience members questions next up we have dr jack fletcher from hyena powerpod in south africa hyena's powerpod is a diesel generator replacement technology that produces on-site on-demand and reliable electricity jack and his team developed the powerpod technology as a way to deploy fuel cell technology into africa where hydrogen distribution is all but non-existent liquid petroleum gas or lpg is an ideal source of energy because its use in cooking and heating are already widespread by using the existing lpg infrastructure hyena makes localized power generation in remote locations a reality the power pod generates the necessary hydrogen from lpg and water and then converts it into electricity jack and his team have demonstrated the technology and developed several prototypes at a small scale now they're working on a pre-commercial 5 kilowatt power pod for telecom towers but enough from me let's hear from jack [Music] [Music] hi my name is jack fletcher and i'm a co-founder and director of hydrogen energy applications for insured hyena here at ahina we're developing the powerpod the powerpod is a fuel cell based diesel generator replacement it is silent easy to service operates independent of weather condition and uses existing fuel infrastructure as you know internal combustion engines like the diesel generator are polluting and reliable and inefficient for many markets hydrogen fuel cells offer a cheaper more reliable and eco-friendly alternative an example where the powerpod can have a large impact is in the talcom tower market in sub-saharan africa alone there are over 300 000 off-grid and burger towers and this number is growing rapidly with more than 100 new towers commissioned every day so then why are we not seeing more fuel cells in the field simply the answer is there is just no hydrogen distribution or storage infrastructure where do you buy your hydrogen hyena makes fuel cells possible how do we do this we put a hyena in a box give it lpg and water and it generates electricity lpg also known as propane or petroleum gas is the same gas you use at home for cooking and eating the use of this existing lpg infrastructure makes sahina's power quite scalable now this is a huge unfair advantage over our competitors use non-distributed fields such as methanol or ammonium even though lpg contains carbon rpg can also be made green from captured co2 and renewable hydrogen to form green lpg or as we call it green gas this green gas can then be blended directly into the existing rpg infrastructure making the power part eventually copper neutral to date hyena has raised over 2 million us dollars and we have scaled up 500 times from proof of concept to the full engineering designs we have received interest to pilot our system from telcom tower codes and have now started with the build of the full-scale power plug with a planned completion in the first quarter of 2023 hyena's business model is based on revenue from three streams an example for the telco market is given in the slide initially initially revenue will be generated from sales of the power pod hyena aims to take a 15 share of the sub-saharan serviceable available telco market which translates to 2 250 units annually as the number of units in the field increased recurring revenue from servicing and quadrant replacement soon overtakes the sales revenue and becomes a major source of income finally hyena aims to generate revenue on the retail margin of lpg we are a strong and growing team with diverse experience in hydrogen technologies from academic research and ip to industry and product engineering in addition to the four co-founders uh hema bella and jens muller have recently joined the team both hammer and jens are successful entrepreneurs with background in engineering and bring a wealth of knowledge to our union looking at the next two to three years hyena plans to build demonstrate and pilot the complete this full-scale powerpoint of generating customer interest first revenues and sales at the moment we are looking for partners in the african lpg space and we would also like to engage with potential customers to identify and plan for demonstrations and field troubles thank you everyone for for your time and thank you jack at the the whole potential for the hyena power pod it does seem very exciting i'm going to go straight to alexandra for the first question thanks malcolm jack that was incredible uh really really interesting what you're doing and i had a question really about the tower market i mean you obviously uh you know you explained incredibly well in your pitch while you're targeting them and i just wanted to ask you for an update whether the the tower market in africa are they ready for this how are they responding you said that there is interest already and i just wanted to understand your experience so far your timing and kind of getting to the 15 that you mentioned in your pitch and then after that what are the potential applications beyond telecoms uh thank you for your question um yes so i think um i guess in in um businesses like this timing is everything um and i think we are at the right time um for for various reasons i think um because the tower market is growing so rapidly and there's such a lot of competition in the market especially the off-grid towers need to be reliable if these towers aren't running they're losing customers so they need reliable technology to to satisfy the customer need and fuel cells can provide this they're much more reliable in diesel generators another reason why the timing at the moment is very good is that the world is moving towards uh net zero so reducing carbon emissions and this technology um has the potential to to be net zero although um at present um we we produce about 15 percent less co2 in the diesel generator with the with the potential to make uh make it much less so speaking to the tower companies so far um they're very open to doing demonstrations um basically the the reply that you get when we contact them is that sure bring bring the powerpoint to the site so i think that's very important for us to build this full-scale unit um so we can actually do that we can we can actually take it to sites uh with uh put it on the put in the talcum towers and demonstrate it to to our customers so i think there's a huge drive uh and a need for this technology um we are in talks with uh one large telco they they've got many towers all over africa and so i think there are some other questions about uh levelized cost of electricity over the lifetime of the of the system and those type of things which which we're looking at with them now so um yeah and then other the other answer to sort of what other applications yes welcome yeah i was going to just well give you your answer briefly jack then i'm going to bring in john yeah so as the cost comes down um other markets open up some interesting ones are remote um eco lodges um obviously you don't the noise of a diesel generator this can do that but even uh later um for for domestic use replacing diesel generators in south africa every year from the low chain so you could i mean once the cost comes down you could you could even do that it's basically a diesel generator replacement thank you jack and john a fantastic innovation jack thank you and i'd like to go slightly tactical actually and what i was going to ask you to do two related questions um my question is for a lay audience how would you describe the absolutely core technical innovation here that differentiates you is it the way you process the lpg or is it something about the design of the cartridge and my related question on that is um are you planning on continuing to use platinum um within the core elements or are you going to move to some other catalyzer given the constant scarcity of platinum and iridium thank you thank you very question yes so i think our advantage or let's say our technological difference is two things um like you mentioned it's it's that we use lpg as what we call the hydrogen carrier so obviously there's no hydrogen distribution infrastructure no pipelines carrying hydrogen around africa or trixie so we we use an existing fuel um which contains hydrogen and that's how we transport hydrogen around um so so i think our technology is um very good at converting that or removing the the hydrogen from lpg that's where that's where we have an advantage and also in the design of the power pod so we we've designed the powerpod itself for very easy servicing and maintenance um these cartridges uh that also that are in the system they contain the the catalyst the part that removes the hydrogen um these these cartridges can be replaced in the field i mean you don't need to remove the whole system from the field and send it off to you know special factory to do that so you can kind of use the existing um people in the field that are already servicing diesel generators to do this job thank you thanks jack i think that's good answer i want to ask an audience question which is um we understand that the the philosophy of replacing diesel generators because of their cost unreliability fuel etc but compared with a good solar with proper battery backup to ensure 24-hour reliable power why would people go for your solution the hyena rather than the solar plus battery solution um yeah thank you for your question that's very valid um i think we can agree that if you have solar and solar is available and you're generating electricity directly from solar you should use it like that our solution is one that can be used together with solar or in situations where you need reliable 24 7 power so if you can imagine a remote lodge um maybe you know one of these luxury lodges in in the in the wilderness area lots of them have uh solar panels uh but you if you've got clients that are paying thousands of dollars a night to stay at the lodge and it's been raining for two weeks you can't expect them to not have any power and a lot of those lodges have backup diesel generators so what we would do is our technology is complementary to situations where you have solar panels and we would just replace the diesel generator but in situations where you need very reliable power 24 7 without any upset like clinics rural clinics um and tulco towers where you're not able to have solar panels for for various reasons then you would use the power button instead of a diesel generator thank you thanks jack very clear great answers uh and uh you know very exciting that you've managed that fundraise this year um back to you now shinny thanks jack thank you yes thanks jack and well done now lastly for this afternoon we have virtue oboro from nigeria with her innovation crib aglow cripper glow is a foldable phototherapy crib that treats and monitors jaundice newborns jaundice occurs when bilirubin a natural substance made when red blood cells disintegrate is abnormally high devices used to treat jaundice newborns are not designed for under-resourced facilities they're typically prohibitively expensive and highly sensitive to electricity fluctuations or outages virtue and her team work to fill this gap in healthcare technology creating a phototherapy crib that can run on either grid or solar power it uses led lights and actively monitors the level of bilirubin in the baby's body it's completely mobile and a tenth of the cost of the average phototherapy device used in developed countries the crib is already in use in 70 hospitals in nigeria and with more than 50 000 newborns treated today to date remember you can ask questions during the upcoming pitch and q a session take it away virtue [Music] [Music] [Music] my name is virtue oburo and i'm the founder of tiny hats technology in 2015 i noticed my son was sleeping for longer hours he looked pale yellow but as a first-time mom i thought he was just light-skinned he was diagnosed with severe neonatal jaundice neonatal jaundice is the yellowness of the eyes and skin caused by a substance called bilirubin in the baby's blood this condition affects over 50 percent term babies and 80 percent pretend babies globally and if not treated early can cause blindness deafness cerebral palsy or even death yearly 6 million babies globally do not have access to effective phototherapy treatment because they lack access to phototherapy devices out of 7 million babies born in nigeria yearly 4.5 million of them are diagnosed with neonatal jaundice 1 in 22 of these babies die because of this condition when left untreated we have designed the cripper glow phototherapy unit for the treatment of neonatal jaundice this device breaks the barrier of cost access electricity and early detection in phototherapy it is lightweight collapsible and easy to move around solar powered so it works everywhere there's a jaundiced baby in need it has diagnostic functions we go further to provide continuous medical education on neonatal jaundice in rural areas the underlying magic of the criba glow units is uninterrupted power supply that makes recovery rates faster by 40 percent healthcare providers have also recorded that the incidence of emergency exchange blood transfusions have reduced by over 70 percent this is because properties of our leds have a higher penetrating power on the baby than other units the purple glow generally does not leave side effects on babies such as skin burn high temperature and rashes it requires less maintenance and meets the required standard of phototherapy with a wavelength of 495 nanometer the criba glow is easier to set up and use by non-professionals so it is easily and quickly adapted in rural communities compared to others we operate a business to business and business a customer model by selling crippled law units to medical equipment distributors hospitals and renting to hospitals and homes on demand through this model we have saved over 500 000 babies through sales to 400 hospitals 350 homes and medical equipment distributors in nigeria and ghana we are currently in conversation with partnering organizations to roll our cribago units to 120 units in nigeria our team is made up of professionals from the healthcare renewable energy community development technology and engineering sector with over 25 years experience we have a supportive board of advisors who are experts in business management innovation healthcare and leadership our short and midterm plan is to expand to seven other african countries by identifying and partnering with medical equipment distributors working with supervising bodies in those countries to endorse the use of our devices organizing health campaigns to create brand awareness we will also leverage on networking opportunities that the africa prize platform has and will present to us we aim to raise 250 000 pounds to enable us increase manufacturing capacity so that we can meet the high need and demand for phototherapy devices we will do this by purchasing additional production machines recruit and train additional and current staff expand our production sites and improve on commercial access online we also need technical support from the royal academy of engineering introduction to research teams in neonatal care partnership with medical device distributors and pediatric health in our proposed countries of expansion we are equalizing health by designing and deploying medical devices to reduce infant death and disabilities in africa thank you very much well thank you virtue for a great pitch and and also you know the fact that the product has such an important uh benefit that's so clear uh i'd like to go straight to barbara for the first question here thanks malcolm hi virtue it's a wonderful product and really happy for what you're doing um just a question on sustainability of what you're doing um can you just run through um the cost of production where your production sites are um how much money each of these units costs just to give a sense of margin and and just a sense of whether or not this will require a lot of volumes for you to really make money from it and keep it sustainable and also as you're talking about production um you know what are your safety measures as well okay thank you so much barbara that's quite a lot to share um first the cripper glow phototherapy units um the cost production of the creeper cleans actually is um 300 it used to be 300 for one we had very close very um small very little profit margin um but in 2020 we were able to expand or expand our profit margin to um 200 dollars for production of one unit aside some marketing and logistics and that was a huge milestone for us because we're able to make more profits on each of these units and we also have produced these phototherapy units for a couple for four years we spent the first two years in improving and developing the designs and changing designs until we had a successful prototype in the process of that we were able to learn a lot about sustaining this product by identifying locally sourced materials materials that we do not have to import into nigeria so that it will reduce the cost of production um because of that we are able to have control over our production times which makes us more sustainable we don't have to burn so much energy all the time so we have production times we go on production breaks we also have these materials um flow into in and out of our facilities when we order for them and the fact that we are also close to this materials helps us to spend less on logistics importing them into nigeria as well as um the cost of customs duties and the time of delivery to the customers when they require it um can you can you give me more can you tell me more about what you asked so i can give more um so what is the margin you said 200 for the cost what's the margin um the profit margin now is um about 80 sorry no it's about eighty dollars each okay yeah and barbara does that answer all your questions there this this the safety piece i just wanted to clarify how do you make make sure because this is all this is babies how do you make sure that the units are safe um thank you my apologies for skipping that um we from the start we have worked with professionals pediatricians um biomedic biomedical engineers and we have also ensured that the cripper glow unit goes through a quality um equality control process where we have registered with the navdark which is the national agency for food and drugs agency in nigeria to ensure that we are working in line with them quality control another thing we do is we ensure that hospitals test try and even labs they try out these phototherapy units before um that's what we did initially and we keep doing that when we have a new um um a new design of the crib glow photo therapy unit however continuously we get feedback feedback from professionals which are pediatric nurses and doctors those want those health professionals who are focused on taking care of the babies in the device so they give us constant feedbacks whenever we have a feedback that's um that has that requires us making a change for safety reasons we make a change and then we update our safety uh measures with the navdark agency that's great thank thank you and i'm gonna pass now to ibilola yeah i think you're in nigeria at the moment ibiza so a question from you yes thank you so much malcolm and well done um this is such a fantastic uh solution for babies um what are your key partnerships and collaborations that have strengthened your sales and impact and what is outstanding what what sort of partnership are you looking for right now that will make a huge difference and accelerate the growth of your market and increase the impact thank you very much we are currently in partnership with hospitals in nigeria government hospitals these hospitals ensure that when they use the phototherapy unit they're able to give us feedback and also recommend us to the nigerian medical association we have also a new partnership with the um the association for neonatologists in nigeria starting from the 20th of june um what's strategic about this partnership is that these are the people who take the decisions in terms of medical device procurement these people will recommend our devices to organizations they'll recommend us to people and bodies who would purchase more of these devices we are also in collaboration with medical device distributors for example life bank and a couple of other organizations that purchase in bulk this unit and deploy to other organizations these organizations are also strategic strategically positioned in places where even when they are positioned as the organizations they still talk about the cryptoglobe phototherapy unit as their achievements so that's where we are and where we are looking at is um while we came tops as the africa prize finalists we were able to secure a new partnership with the nigerian army and we'll be deploying our photo therapy units to all the nigerian army hospitals in nigeria which is quite big um it covers um the the the the military covers the navy the police force and lots of all these other hospitals across nigeria these are one of the partnerships we've looked forward to and we are expecting to seal up other partnership deals with research organizations after this we hope that would gain will be able to leverage on networking with research organizations and in and out of nigeria as well as hospital equipment distributors in africa generally thank you thank you very much uh thank you virtue i think just a one-liner what is your distinctive competitive edge against your your competitors accessibility ease of use and sustainability in terms of treating you natal jaundice thank you that was a question from the audience by the way that's great uh thank you virtue and thank you to all the finalists actually all the pitches were excellent and it is really difficult being cross-examined on the hoof like this especially virtually so i think everybody did really really well uh and and now you've given us the problem uh as six judges we have the super difficult task of choosing who is the one winner from four really terrific entrepreneurs um and we always like to get some help from the audience in making our decisions so while we go off to deliberate i'll hand over to shinny who among other things will be asking for your audience votes on the four finalists we've just heard but thank you to all of them and over to you shinny thank you malcolm and thank you virtue what an impressive group of entrepreneurs i must say i'm inspired by the amazing innovations that the four africa prize 2022 finalists have showcased so now that you've heard from all four finalists it's your turn to get involved the vote is now open so you can choose which one of our finalists has impressed you the most so this is how to vote in the polls and voting tab below select one of the four finalist names for who you think deserves to win this year's africa prize the winner will be announced at the end of the event and your help can make the difference as the judges begin their deliberations and now we have the one to watch pitches where only you the audience will decide on the winner last year we introduced a new award called the one to watch designed exclusively for the 12 shortlists for an award of 5 000 pounds and this is how it works each of the shortlist will have the opportunity to present a one minute pitch and we want you the audience to vote for the pitch that resonates the most in terms of potential for impact in africa so here are the pitches [Music] [Music] hello my name is julius maru from lh uganda limited at elite we are solving the problem of difficulty difficult intravenous connection in children 50 to 80 percent of children who come to the hospital will need a needle inserted for intravenous medication however the procedure is difficult because their veins are small and they collapse during illness exposing them to multiple praying for bricks but as well downward mobility and death in case of area we have developed the allied vein locator which is a portable low cost and locally made blood vessel illuminator that increases past neurosuccess rate or costing a fraction of other devices it is designed to suit conditions in sub-saharan africa and once commercialized it will alleviate the clinician's burden of locating veins but as well improve patients outcome and satisfaction by increasing personal success rate thank you [Music] [Music] one of the top challenges of manufacture is packaging scarcity hello everyone my name is from ethiopia i am ceo and co-founder of agrico packaging i have a basic degree in electrical engineering and management digital four billion theories are just cut to produce paper packaging in ethiopia farmers dumped and buried million thousands of town straw just to remove from their farm for the next production in the meantime the manufacturing sector is growing with seven percent every year despite of the packaging space by considering those problems and opportunity we come up with a solution which is producing eco-friendly hard papers and cardboard packaging from agricultural byproducts including water hyacinth with our innovative environmental suitable production process our products are customable biodegradable with affordable price we also able to receive pre-orders from customers and we work with 2000 plus farmers as a supplier thank you [Music] [Music] hello i'm lauren shafansa co-founder of aquaponics hub food insecurity on the african continent is quite alarming with canada having a food insecure population of 3.6 million to help solve this problem led to the creation of aquaponics hub aquaponics hub consists of a kit complete with sensors and a mopar app the kit allows individuals to grow both fish and vegetables using less resources such as land water and nutrients users can control and monitor factors that affect fish and plant growth with help of sensors and have access to market choose their markets place on the app to ensure food is available where it's needed aquaponics hub can help stop food insecurity on the continent while creating jobs also please join us to make this a reality thank you [Music] [Music] is there anything more important in your lives than your families hello everyone my name is willing gum i am the ceo and co-founder of weekly we provide sustainable cooking solutions for african kitchens made entirely from recycled metals crap four billion women wake up every morning to prepare food for hungry people the kitchens that they often use are closed developing smoke pollution causing heart and lung diseases on the cooks and killing up to four million people every year according to world health organization bleakly is the solution we provide sustainable cooking tools and health friendly cooking field made entirely from recycled metal scraps and recycled biomass waste respectively thanks to our solution we have reduced indoor air pollution by up to 95 and faster cooking time our customers include low-income households schools cafeterias and other commercial cooking establishment cooking for hungry people is important but it should not be to the detriment of people's health and the environment thank you very much [Music] [Music] good day i'm coy from nigeria i'm an energy entrepreneur and i could develop them code box store code box store is a network of solar powerful storage facilities that are deployed in understaffed family communities to boost the productivity of small other farmers it is known it is a known fact that smaller farmers lose about um 55 percent of their other step produced to food waste along the supply chain and which is largely caused by a lack of sustainable coal chains and this is a problem called box is already fixing code box store also w's are the first mile aggregation center that connects more of the farmers to markets um we are we have a working commercial viable product and we're scaling up our operations with the partnership of key stakeholders and industries such as rocky mountain institute um usadf nigeria's re hollow and many others and we are open to other partnerships that share the same vision of ensuring food security and safety on the african continent thank you [Music] hi allow me to introduce you to sara sana lives in kibera's lands last year sarah lost 240 days of school because she could not afford a mr product sarah school has over 2000 girls and the school has to bury over 300 kilos of menstrual waste per month within the compound just because they have no other way of disposing the same no wonder the school has to deal with so many cases of sick girls my name is catherine wan joya co-founder and ceo of genesis care we are serial entrepreneurs who combine technology use and experience to provide on-demand low-cost sanitary pads using our automated sanitary pump dispensers our eco-friendly onsite incinerators burn the waste we are keeping the environment safe of vulnerable communities keeping girls in school and women working throughout the month thank you [Music] my name is ram iluma and i'm the founder of hobby so close to 50 percent of nigerians live on less than a dollar per day and as a result of these cost savings people are struggling to afford what others no longer use for end up disposing puppies addressing this growing inequality using a circular economy approach where people are incentivized to share their pre-owned items with others who then obtain these items using our virtual tokens called buzzes so our tokens empower low-income earners and the unemployed to save money obtaining items they need while also encouraging them to reuse which benefits the environment currently over 2 000 items have been free cycled on our platform that have impacted a thousand seven hundred people majority being women and in 2023 our goal is to have a million items listed that have the potential of benefiting at least 200 000 people with hobby more people be able to save while also taking care of the environment thereby improving their standard of living thank you [Music] co-founder of green tech africa over thousands community members was infected in my mother's village in como brazovin by water ascent the most invasive aquatic plant in the world the best way to address this problem was to use this talent to tackle another challenge industrial pollution three years ago we decided to use capacity of obsolete pollutant of freshwater accent to produce hundred percent of organic fiber which is able now to absorb over 70 times it had in all basic periods that you customize it depends on need we are selling in different types of companies construction companies all storage and exploitation companies in congo gabon french and uk we developed community collection system with 85 percent of women we are working with 10 village and mobilizing over 300 000 community members our revenue has grown from 30 000 u.s dollars to over 300 000 u.s dollars for the future of our planet join house to solve two environmental problems thank you [Music] hi my name is philip chessop co-founder and lead engineer at peak energy it is estimated that only 28 percent of utenans have access to electricity leaving over 5.7 million households still not connected to the grid according to the world bank if every household had access to energy by 2030 48 of generated energy will come from mini grids and 23 percent from earthquake soil however there are still limited technologies to make solar more reliable sustainable and economical peak energy is helping solar companies and many great developers to reach unconnected communities by allowing them to remote money to solar deployments for predictive maintenance prevent system failure and reduce operational costs we generate revenue from hardware sales as well as monthly subscriptions from renting our software so far we've connected 3800 households impacting 16 200 people we're a team of young change americans trying to make the world a better place we seek to raise 250 000 u.s dollars for r d and business development thank you [Music] hi my name is i'm the founder of solar culture one of the challenges faced as an undergrad was always this inconsistent power supply and internet connectivity sometimes we could go for months our electricity which mostly affects our site work at solar project we have created highly durable solar power workstation which is designed to charge electric devices and then gives you access to internet we build an online booking management system that gives users a spot at the team at solar culture we open to collaborate with patient physicians and government parasectors thanks a lot [Music] my name is fabi social i am the co-founder of missing tech a health tech startup do you know that southside africa has four times lower health workers compared to world average in siemenson 40 percent of users are not certified with the quality of services in our hospital we which raise the question of how to improve user satisfaction and help hospital managers to better manage the limited human resources available to address this we are developing a connected or unconnectedness called system that we allow patients to quickly communicate their needs to tag to caregivers and provide managers with information on alert distribution and staff effectiveness our solution has been tested by 5 hospitals and 20 managers the final version is on the way partnership have been launched to accelerate our market entry we are looking for financial and non-financial support to complete the development of our solution and tackle the symmetry job thank you for listening [Music] [Music] my name is femi taiwo i'm a co-founder and ceo of terrawork regardless of budget or location imagine a world where there's a perfect talent for every business to drive and create economic opportunities imagine a very talented individual was optimally engaged working on any desert income no location barrier that's what we are creating at terrawork we are simplifying negative freelance in the cluster self-service marketplace that serves both freelance workers and businesses we have developed an easy to navigate web app as well as android and ios app companies can hire from extensive pool of best in class better talents only when it's arise and save up to 45 on hiring costs our process is faster solutions targeted to africa to enable companies to avoid the team they need quickly we believe africa can be a dedicated service of where billions of dollars opportunities are with our talents and we are driving this thank you now that you've heard from all 12 of our shortlist candidates it's your turn to get involved the vote is now open for you to choose the pitch that resonates with you the most again you'll be able to see the 12 names of the shortlist in the polls and voting tab below remember the shortlisted candidate with the greatest number of votes will receive an award of 5 000 pounds and thank you to everyone on that shortlist now on to this next section where i'm delighted to be joined by the winner of the africa prize 2021 noel in gessen who won 25 000 pounds with his innovation cubeco a set of low-cost biowaste processing equipment noel welcome back to the africa prize final how does it feel to be back hi shinny [Music] yeah i did not expect to be back again so soon maybe as a judge but i'm really happy to be back so soon what do you remember from that initial period after winning the prize what was it like now i was in the clouds it was it was it was amazing because the the cohorts itself since we had a whole year before the actual prize ceremony we had maybe half a year but it was quite a long period with the other companies so to start competitions i was very surprised to have won because of the competition was so good so it was a very happy feeling and what impact has winning the prize had on your innovation and business i can maybe say it simply in three types of impacts because the the price is very credible let's say so that that gave us also credibility in our innovations that was direct and then there was intense media attention in the beginning so that gave us exposure which you know builds on itself so we had a lot of exposure which led to orders like actual sales and partnership building and then the cash prize itself which was useful for the cash flow definitely but also for the investments that we that we needed you know based on the strategy that led us to join the program in the first place it sounds like the africa prize has really made a difference to your business um would you say so yes um [Music] in many ways because from a team level because we're a small company we hire four to five engineers at any given time and um sometimes and what keeps the engineers from going to other more let's say classic companies or stable companies they is the vision you know so on a team level winning the prize strengthens the visions the belief you know the cohesion that what we're doing is uh is right you know and um beyond that on a pure growth level it acted as an accelerator because um internal issues like hr through the the expert sessions that you had before the prize and also external effects like partnerships and access to investors also you know were direct results so a lot of impact so you've talked about how it's affected your business and you as a team but how has it affected you personally to win this prize i mean i'm an engineer so it felt you know special different to win a prize from the engineering academy you know uh especially in our case where we we try to have large impact but with relatively low tech engineering you know we try to combine the like the you know the high efficient engineering but with very simple design so so it felt rewarding you know to win a to win this specific price so on a personal level that was quite important and then uh i have to say i learned a lot you know i always come back to the part before the the final prize during that program i i learned a lot as an entrepreneur you know which uh [Music] you you um yeah i mean to run the company you need kind of a full package so so that gave me a lot on the personal level as well so based on what you've experienced do you have any advice for this year's cohort give yourself the time because it's it's well invested time i mean the program requires a lot of availability which at the moment you know seems a bit conflicting with with other priorities so give yourself the time because it's a good investment that's number one um take the time also to to think through the kind of expert expert sessions you you request because they will be good so if you put in the effort ask what you really need then you'll get more out of it so that's that's definitely important um yeah that's it so that's that'll be the main two things because that part is longer than the final price if you do get to the to the finals like uh like the the companies that were here today for the final the winner the yeah the grand prize um prepare prepare prepare also for the questions you know because uh all the companies are good so that's where you can get an edge well very wise advice there thank you so much for joining us noel and we're actually going to see you soon when you announce this year's winner thank you very much so now we're going to move on to a thematic discussion focused on how entrepreneurship is driving scalable and sustainable solutions to address energy poverty in sub-saharan africa this topic has been chosen for a number of reasons firstly at the academy's africa showcase event earlier this year reliable and affordable access to energy was repeatedly highlighted by our stakeholders as being a major obstacle to development in sub-saharan africa secondly energy is one of the most dominant sectors in terms of innovations that have come through the africa prize program highlighting its relevance across the african continent in addition awareness of energy access has grown this year in the uk as the cost of living has risen and of course energy usage and its impact on climate change continues to be a prevalent theme across the world i have the pleasure of being joined by a panel of experts in the energy field firstly we have richard gomez ceo of shell foundation and chair of shell foundation's investment committee richard leads shell foundation's ecosystem development programme and has supported over 50 social enterprises to build consumer demand raise investment and secure support from policy makers he's authored several reports examining lessons learned from shells foundation's work including enterprise solutions to 2030 and accelerating access to energy great to have you with us richard we also have jawande abbayosa managing director africa and global communities manager at the energy institute yuande leads and initiates cross-industry discussions and amongst corporate organizations by liaising with market leaders to offer energy solutions and develop strategic plans to expand the institute's network she successfully launched nigeria's first energy sustainability conference or esc in 2018 a conference that brings together professionals from across the entire spectrum of the energy sector so pleased to have you with us joanne and last but not least i'm delighted to welcome david to sabira david is the founder and ceo of dojo hub co-founder and cto of innovets and in 2020 was an africa prize finalist with his innovation remote a hardware and software system that monitors and manages the performance usage and health of solar photovoltaic panel installations david thank you for joining us throughout this discussion we're again keen to hear from you so do get your questions posted please add them to the ask a question tab and you can also click the thumbs up to upvote other audience members questions so to begin the discussion what i want to ask all of you first off is something to set the context so you know why is this such an important topic for all of you here on the panel would you like me to start shinny yeah richard why not for me energy's the bedrock of social mobility so um shell foundation's a uk charity we serve people who are living on two ten dollars a day in africa and asia and we deploy about 40 million dollars a year building out enterprises who can transform the lives of that community and if you think about you know that community there's a billion people out there without access to affordable reliable energy there's two and a half billion people who are cooking indoors on very traditional stoves and fires fundamentally energy is a prerequisite for any improvement in health education moving up the income ladder so we're working with enterpreneurs and engineers who are creating energy for studying for schools for healthcare facilities for refrigerating vaccines just street lighting small business farming so all of the transformational potential of things like the internet smartphone digital finance tvs radios all these things need power so i think there's for me a very significant market opportunity here for very talented innovators entrepreneurs engineers investors out there who are looking for a market that delivers really significant social and environmental impact thank you now david um we know that reliable and affordable access to energy uh is known to be a major obstacle to development in sub-saharan africa but why does energy poverty look what does energy poverty look like in a ugandan context so energy poverty is simply the lack of access to sustainable modern services in uganda that's something like people using kerosene lamps and candles for lighting that's pretty much what it looks like in uganda and some of the renewable resources because uh you know hydro energy uh bioenergy uh photovoltaic solar and geothermal although these are not really yet available to a large percentage of population it's only about eighty percent but yeah that's pretty much it and you randy help us set the context here from the energy in institute's perspective why is this such an important topic so thank you for having me and thank you for that question um at the energy institute our focus really is to promote best practice within the energy space so obviously from your conventional oil and gas to the most um sustainable one which is renewables and in africa it's wind and solar and for us at the energy institute we want to be at the forefront of these discussions energy access is very important but if we do not start to discuss the the issues the climate change issues within the region then really we're just blindsiding ourselves and um for us at the energy institute we are well positioned to help move the the industry forward in all the different regions we do this through our trainings we train um young people we train people within oil and gas power renewables and the point here is how do you work more efficiently without jeopardizing the future generation so at the energy institute we are creating different avenues to do this we have technical partners that are supporting us to put out the best possible standards we're making sure that not just our members in the western world are benefiting from these um from all these different array of of products we have within the ei but with our branches and hubs that we have all over the world we are supporting the industry thank you so richard back to you access to energy is one of the two main focus areas for the shell foundation how is shell supporting enterprises working in this space yeah sure so we've been working with well with probably over 200 innovators over the last 20 years so exploring new technologies new engineering solutions different types of business models to provide those essential services and we use some patient capital to nurture pioneers and see new markets predominantly grant alongside quite extensive business support market links so examples of really cool new technologies include you know very low cost solar lighting for households pays to go energy for lighting and cell phone charging and radios and then that sort of evolution of these services to pay as you go for things like tvs and fridges and then income growth activities like solar irrigation and e-vehicles on the cooking side fuel efficient biomass stoves smart lpgs mini grids serving hundreds of households at one time generating power from solar and biomass like rice husk i was out in uh in kenya last week with a partner that makes biomass digesters so they take cow dung and produce biogas for cooking and also fertilizer and that's really relevant because you know over over two billion people have have more than two cows so you know when we work with these types of businesses you see an incredible effect on education and income and health and in the environment and we've got some really interesting examples of businesses that have scaled now um an example being you know m copper one of the world's largest pay-as-you-go solar businesses we started working with them 11 12 years ago um you know their first office offer was a very low cost solar system three lights radio cell charge you pay a small deposit and then you get you pay installments using mobile money and it's a lower cost than kerosene you know we work with them to test the model to raise capital to scale to progress from foundation to donor funding through to dfi funding impact investment and then commercial capital um you know a whole whole set of basics you know launching products building distribution creating the back office and credit team creating the software platform to manage operations and then gradually as they attract capital working with their engineers to push the boundaries of new products so um yeah they've evolved to an asset financer of cell phones and tvs and fridges and eva course and they've now raised 350 million plus and benefited over 10 million people so just an example of some of these businesses that now raising sort of significant funding but the early stage support that they need in the very early years to innovate and test um you know we've got 75 of these types of social enterprises in our portfolio now tough work but and out of all those technologies you mentioned what do you think have been the key things that have led to their success yeah it's interesting i mean we we help in a few ways the sheer determination of the of the entrepreneurs promoters management teams i mean it's it's it's it's so tough i mean building a new business it's a new the first kind of a product or service we're looking for really disruptive innovators and they'll typically be working in rural areas where no infrastructure exists so no access to talent limited working capital no value chain partners often no enabling policy so you know we often like liking it to to building google when the internet doesn't doesn't actually exist so we're trying to take the lift off you know in a way and help by you know providing that very patient capital particularly grant for disruptive solutions working over you know 5 fifteen years as they go through cycles of innovation test establish the product market fit and fail and go again and provided we're learning we keep going um you know sometimes investing ten fifteen million dollars before we get to mass adoption and that type of funding isn't uncommon for lots of innovation that happens in north america and europe advances in renewable energy smartphones sat nails the internet a lot of that has come from public funding and research grants so applying the same principles to engineering for this market a lot of access to networks investors and then significant business support across the organization from governance to finance to i.t and sales and marketing um really sort of working holistically to help them build their their investment credentials thank you richard and david over to you we'd love to hear more about your innovation remote and your wider entrepreneurial journey up until now with innovex can you tell us more about the innovation and give us an insight into the challenges you've faced as well as your experiences in scaling up yeah absolutely so remarks platform that helps solid distributors scale by providing various digital tools and this aids their operations so remote is still the only platform in the world that provides both performance monitoring and credit purchase features now one of the biggest challenges faced is attracting skilled talent this is mostly because of a stiff competition from the international market uh it's very difficult to hire software developers uganda so that has been one of our best challenges um our product serves and niche markets which happens to be quite small in canada we have therefore had to spread our horizons and check out more countries in such africa and uh currently we have the sales teams in kenya and nigeria just uganda uh of course that comes with bad large expenses in operations which is also another challenge but on the other side we've been quite successful in raising uh basic capital last year we managed to raise a pc round 150 000 euros and this year we expect to raise a seat round uh between uh 500 000 uh so yeah that's that's that's a little bit about my entrepreneurial journey so far thank you and joanne day as part of your role at the energy institute you've launched an energy sustainability conference in nigeria can you tell us more about this conference yes um so i always like to start from the beginning so the energy sustainability conference was actually birth after the energy institute and one of our local partners ran a program called the graduate engineering scheme um coincidentally um that partner is actually on the call learner deck and it was sponsored by the royal academy of engineering coincidentally too and one of the most glaring takeaways we got from that was that there's a huge renewable energy knowledge and skills gap and it wasn't just a gap with um graduates and industry there was a huge gap with industry and academia policy makers government it was literally a gap that needed someone to go in there and just help to create solutions and really this is exactly what the ei does bringing all these different parties together getting them together in one room and helping to solve the many problems we have in energy as we've all been talking about and the energy institute our role as a professional organization is to disseminate knowledge um from as i said before from oil and gas also to other areas and we realized that the best way to solve this gap problem and the dilemma of energy access and challenges with with climate change is to inspire people to come together within this platform platform we called the energy sustainability conference now over the years it's evolved to become so many other things we've put into consideration diversity and inclusion we run a women in energy breakfast every year we run a mentorship program where young people are paired with people that come to the conference veterans in the industry people that have more experience and from doing that we've built um this this this um network of young people and older people communicating and sort of bridging that gap where you know they're able to communicate better um another thing we've come that has come out of the esc is the fact that we are now making sure that a lot of companies that are coming out of africa um explaining that they're coming out of oil and gas and want to be more of an energy company they're asking the energy institute what does that mean do we sack our existing staff and we're trying to tell them no it's the same skills gap we just probably need to come and speak to you about what kind of courses they need to run we need to support you to create peaceful courses we need to explain what you need to do as an organization to change your model and change your behavior so that you come to a cleaner and more sustainable um side of the world so the escbc has been set for the 8th and the 10th of november so we're very excited about it everybody on this platform is definitely invited to join us um yes so that's what the energy sustainability conference is all about it's in lagos nigeria it sounds like it was a really powerful conference pun intended um do you see it as something that should be replicated regionally or even a larger scale so it's interesting because for me um i think when we say collaboration for some reason a lot of african countries and african stakeholders we always think collaboration outside of africa and there lies the problem itself we have our neighboring counterparts we have people that have amazing wealth of knowledge to share amazing skills amazing experience that we actually need to tap from we might not need to go so far so we need to collaborate some more and if we do not create avenues to collaborate if we don't create avenues to showcase who these competent companies are competent individuals are then we're literally just not ready so in my opinion um institutes like the energy institute need to come to the forefront of explaining what competencies needed for companies energy companies in africa to actually be seen because as was mentioned earlier by richard he had explained this fantastic project with moca that's going on but the question is are we really throwing these information out to the western world are people seeing these um interesting projects going on and are we also creating an enabling environment that investments can come in from outside of africa into these regions so yes i do believe that there's this space for us to bring in even more people but most importantly let's bring in the people closer to us now we've probably only got about a minute left so i need kind of short answers from you richard first what other supporting systems or enabling factors can support innovations to be both scalable and sustainable yeah so i think that the key is we need a significant uptake in uptick in the capital invested right so two billion dollars has gone into the market today and these types of solutions our research suggests you need to multiply that by about a hundred times to meet the needs of africa and the good news is that there are some of the asset owners like naveen capital pimco blackrock who are quite keen to support that transition and support that there's funding available but they can't quite deploy but i think we need to build a pipeline of investable businesses you know step change in tech innovation and venture building we need that ecosystem where you have a set of specialist intermediaries distributors big data and software applications battery storage etc and the and the non-profit institutions that are needed as markets grow like the energy institute and then thirdly i think funders like ourselves foundations donors impact investors need to blend finance alongside commercial finance and then we can pull resources to try and mobilize a larger part of that funding thank you so much richard and thank you to all of you on the panel yuan day david it's been so insightful great to hear your perspectives and that's all we have time for thank you so much for joining us thank you for having us and now for the announcement of the one to watch winner voted by you the audience the results are in it's really that it's this is really authentic here we've been counting your votes and i'm happy to say that the one to watch winner is femi taiwu from nigeria congratulations to you femi and don't forget you can find out more about our one to watch winner and the rest of our shortlist on our interactive showcase and you should see a tab at the bottom of your screen called interactive showcase and that's how you can access all the content there and now for the moment you've all been waiting for the announcement of the africa prize winner and who better to do this than last year's winner noel it's over to you so after a lot of uh waiting and debating uh the judges had a tough time and the winner of the africa prize 2022 is nora maguevo with vacci box in kenya so congratulations nova i would just like to ask how do you feel uh well i'm i'm excited and i'm not so happy and just so on that structurally made it uh this far it's been such a long process and there's so much learning and pivoting that has happened uh and i've grown immensely so many times and also just met like a really great cohort really brilliant uh engineers and just non-engineers and just entrepreneurs across the african globe that are doing amazing things that are so commendable and it's such an honor to to even share platform with them so thank you so much congratulations again nora honestly what we've been through with the pandemic your technology really resonates with all of us i'm sure well done now before we end the afternoon i'd like us to thank all of our finalists and shortlist members who have done such an excellent job our africa prize judges who have committed so much time and enthusiasm to this process and our speakers who have taken the time to share their knowledge and experiences with us once the event is over we encourage you to explore the interactive showcase to contact the entrepreneurs it's a great way to make connections with the finalists and the shortlist you can see more videos and photos of their innovations and businesses as well as their individual pictures and pitch decks the interactive showcase is open for the next year and each profile can be downloaded as a pdf on the welcome tab you can also find out more information about applying for the africa prize so that next year it could be you pitching in front of our judges and in closing we're delighted to welcome one of our long-established africa prize judges dr ibi lola amaou ibi lola is the principal consultant of luana deck global services a woman owned iso 9001 certified engineering technology and innovation solutions firm of consultants focusing on stem and innovation in energy power infrastructure oil gas and agriculture ibilola's passion is to empower mentor and coach women and youth for positive transformation she's been an africa prize judge for a number of years now and we're delighted to have her close the event for today thank you lola good afternoon and thank you so much for the opportunity to deliver the closing remarks at the final ceremony of the africa prize for engineering innovation 2022 it is a pleasure to do so for many reasons i am an engineer who is committed to stem and innovation i'm also both british and african it is always a privilege to bring diversity to bear in engineering technology and innovation i have been involved with the africa prize since i joined as a mentor who supported a young innovator in his journey of becoming a runner-up at the finals in kenya in 2017. since i became a judge in 2018 i have enjoyed reviewing the most outstanding pitches and i've had the honor of contributing to the shot listing process with the support of other judges and wisdom guidance and counsel of our able chairperson malcolm bryndead the process of shortlisting the top 16 involves a lot of push and pull shortlisting the semi-finalists and finalists is usually a very tough call as we must bring to bear our diverse expertise and holistic perspectives over the past four years the panel of judges have worked very hard to identify and celebrate engineering innovation as well as stem and tech solutions which meet the highest standards of the royal academy of engineering i am pleased to be a part of scene engineering submissions that address sustainable development goals provide jobs and wealth while addressing societal problems the contributions of our shortlisted candidates to environment social and governance solutions is most commendable the africa prize submissions are a diversity of solutions from civil structural mechanical process chemical electrical electronics instrumentation computer engineering as well as information technology which has broadened the impact of the winners on a personal level the joy of seeing a person or team submit an application for the price become a shortlisted candidate go through the 12-week entrepreneurship training enjoy mentoring support then becoming more impactful in their community is most fulfilling for me as a female engineer in energy and entrepreneurship i'm joyful and elated to see gender diversity in the africa prize finals move up from zero percent to 50 percent over the last five years benefits beyond the event include our past shortlisted candidates and winners supporting each other in their developmental journey the african prize alumni community is a phenomenal space where great things are happening if you have been inspired to apply for the african prize after today you can apply now for the african prize for engineering innovation 2023 their the academy website applications are open until july 19th congratulations to all the participants to our finalists runner-ups and winners i say best wishes as i wish you all great success going forward