The Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation has announced winners of the 2022 ChangeMakers Innovation Challenge at its recently held 6th Breakfast Dialogue in Lagos.
Nafarm Foods, a Nigerian agro-processing enterprise proffering solutions to food wastage and post-harvest losses, emerged winner of the top prize.
Black Umbrellas, a South African online platform that offers training, mentoring support, and business coaching to entrepreneurs and Mobiklinic, a Ugandan-based healthcare start-up, were first and second runners-up, respectively.
The top 3 winners will receive N12 million in funding, while all ten finalists also got in-kind support and mentoring from ACT Foundation and its partners.
Health Emergency Initiative (Nigeria) and Dynalimb Technologies (Nigeria) also emerged winners of the IHS special category of the ChangeMakers Innovation Challenge.
The Changemakers Innovation Challenge, an initiative of ACT Foundation in partnership with IHS Towers, Verraki, Lagos Business School and LBS Sustainability Centre, was designed to respond to the great work of African non-profits and social enterprises leveraging technology/digital tools to create social change in their communities.
This year’s theme, “Innovations that Provide Lasting Solutions to Africa’s Greatest Challenges”, was a bold call to action and more than 250 applicants entered the competition from across Africa, each aimed at delivering innovative solutions in the Foundation’s key focus areas – Health, Entrepreneurship, Environment, and Leadership.
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This year’s Challenge was the most competitive yet. The innovators were selected based on their originality, financial viability, scalability, leadership capability, and ability to positively impact significant societal challenges for individuals and businesses.
Congratulating the winners, Osayi Alile, Chief Executive Officer, ACT Foundation, commended the ten finalists for their innovative and sustainable solutions that are groundbreaking in their different sectors. She disclosed that the Foundation would continue to support African entrepreneurs to build a more inclusive and prosperous Africa and dramatically shape the continent’s prospects for the better.
“We believe that our top three winners all have what it takes to make a sustainable impact in their communities,” said Alile. “As a grant-making organisation, we want to enable a prosperous Africa by helping businesses and NGOs that solve problems in critical sectors across the continent with funding, mentorship and professional advisory services.”
She added, “The Changemakers Innovation Challenge is an opportunity to show startups what is required to run a successful business. Beyond that, it is also about hope. It is about sending a message to thousands of other young people starting off that there are organisations out to support and collaborate with them.”
ACT Foundation is Africa’s leading grant-making non-profit organisation, established to support local, national and regional nonprofits working to address challenges and vulnerabilities in the African continent. From health to entrepreneurship, leadership and the environment, ACT Foundation’s impact since its operations five years ago has been far-reaching, touching lives in all 36 states of the Nigerian federation and eight other countries in Africa. And it’s taken them only five years. In 5 years, 80 beneficiaries, 811 communities, and 2 million people have felt ACT Foundation’s impact.
