Conexus Wins Orange Venture Prize
Pauline Dikuelo | Monday December 12, 2016 16:19
The Orange Social Venture Prize is an annual initiative from the Orange Group intended to showcase and support start-ups who use information and communication technologies (ICT) to innovate and make positive impact on communities in Africa and the Middle East.
The start-ups should offer innovative products or services that meet the needs of Africans in the fields of health, agriculture, education, energy, industry or trade.
According to Orange CEO, Patrick Benon, through the competition, they aim to reinforce their digital partnership with start-ups to achieve social and economic development through innovation stimulation.
“We received 28 submissions from Botswana and even though our local winner this year didn’t make it during the Middle East African level, we would like to recognise and appreciate them for their brilliant project proposal. It is our hope that the money will be put to good use and will be used to develop and run the business,” he said
The CEO said that when the awards were incepted in 2014, a Motswana won the overall prize under the ‘ModisaR’ farm management application. The following year another local company, ‘These Hands’ made it to the top 10 which he said is an indication that young Batswana have great potential and are very advanced when it comes to ICT.
On her part, the co-founder of Conexus, Melissa said through their company, they have developed educational software to provide interactive learning materials to learners in primary schools and Junior Certificate level.
“The learning materials are delivered through desktop applications, apps, e-books, augmented reality books and value added services such as SMS and USSD. We have already piloted this app at Camphill Primary School and can tell you that it was successful. Both students, parents and teachers welcomed it,” she said.
According to Melissa, their company is an educational one, which aims to offer the best quality innovative education materials for primary, junior and secondary schools.
“We are determined to build and create quality products and services that are student centred in order to promote student excellence,” she added.
Conexus, a company that was formed this year, is a privately owned educational aggregator which develops educational software. operating a learning centre in Gaborone.