Local Firms Win Big At Virtual SADC Challenge
Pauline Dikuelo | Monday August 3, 2020 12:37
According to Botswana Innovation Hub (BIH), MoneyChap won the category of Digital Financial Identity while Digital Diamond took the Women and Savings category.
BIH brand and communications manager, Kemiso Ben said the companies were now receiving incubation support for further development of their solutions to make invaluable impact in Botswana and the broader region.
“The solutions developed by the winners of the SADC Innovation Challenge will receive incubation towards further development, commercialisation and operationalisation,” Ben said.
She added participants were tasked with developing innovations that addressed four key challenges that represented practical community problems, leveraging data and data analytics to design scalable solutions.
They were also to identify and surface early stage innovations that were relevant to financial inclusion within the four thematic areas: SMME Financing, Digital Financial Identity, Women and Savings and Access to Basic Services.
“Together with our partners Finmarktrust, BIH is proud to be driving innovation in SADC. Our tech entrepreneurs have designed innovative tech solutions for financial services for the SADC region. We look forward to incubating the two regional stage winners within the BIH incubation programme where they are offered mentorship, coaching, access to market and many other interventions to fully develop their solution for the market,” Ben added.
Recently BIH announced the winners of Botswana Innovation Fund COVID-19 challenge of 2020 following a competitive process in which 395 applications were received in response to a call for proposals for solutions addressing the pandemic and its associated socio-economic effects.
According to BIH interest was noticeable in the COVID-19 challenge as many innovators submitted their proposals in response to the pandemic and ways to addressing issues arising from the scourge. BIH also observed there is a significant and growing opportunity to leverage technology particularly in the digital space to move the nation forward, creating greater efficiencies in services as Botswana and greater quality as it relates to the products and services produced.
The SADC Innovation Challenge provides innovators with support from mentors and sector experts, through a series of webinars and design bootcamps. Country winners will be awarded cash prizes $15,000 (about P150,000) per team distributed as follows; $10, 000 (about P100,00) for solution development support and $ 5,000 (about P50,000) cash prize including incubation support, as well as sponsorship to participate in the Grand Finale.
Young innovators from Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia were invited to apply.