Contest Winners Present their Ideas at the Open Innovation Africa Summit 2012
May 29, 2012 By IdeaConnection
Three winners of the Open Innovation Africa Ideas Challenge (OIAS2 from Ideas to Innovation) have been announced and are currently attending the Open Innovation Africa Summit 2012.
The global competition, sponsored by Nokia, infoDev and Capgemini asked participants to come up with ground-breaking ideas that would make it easier for innovators to realise their visions.
More than 100 ideas were submitted which were evaluated based on their novelty, potential impact on society and scalability.
The winners – who all received a trip to Nairobi to present their ideas to respected thought leaders – were:
- Eugene Aroka from Kenya. His idea, called Paa is to give Kenyan youth a boost to become successful entrepreneurs. Whilst there is no shortage of business ideas amongst young people in the African country, the start-up capital required is usually beyond their means. Paa is based on a microfinance model.
- Tonny Katongole from Uganda for an idea called Yiiya. This is a social network for innovators to share their ideas with the public, investors, and peers.
- Joe Rice from the United Kingdom. He won for a concept called LEC (Local Enterprise Circles) that provides a means for investors to finance new firms or to help the growth of existing companies. LECs are local exchanges based on chambers of commerce where personal or corporate investors invest funds to stimulate growth of an enterprise.
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