Internet.org is excited to present six Innovation Challenge in Africa awards to leading examples of ideas, apps, websites and/or online services that provide real value in the categories of education and economic empowerment.

We are presenting two $150,000 USD Innovation Challenge award prizes: one each to the leading app, website, service or idea that best meets the needs of the designated population categories – Education and Economic Empowerment, as well as four additional $50,000 USD Impact awards within each category.

The winners are:

Education

Innovation Challenge Award Winner
Started in Ghana, Esoko makes it easier for businesses, governments, NGOs and others to connect with farmers. Through its web and mobile apps, Esoko enables two-way data flows that allow smallholder farmers to access vital agricultural information and markets, and businesses to gain better visibility into their supply chains. The name Esoko comes from “e” representing electronic and “soko” meaning market in Swahili. Esoko has since spread its services to eight additional markets across Africa.

Impact Award Winner
mPedigree Goldkeys from Ghana is an anti-counterfeiting, tracking and tracing solution that uses consumers’ mobile phones as a verification tool. In Uganda and Kenya, this service is being used to help farmers determine whether they are buying original counterfeit seeds. They have since spread their services to Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Egypt for pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, agro-inputs like seeds and pesticides, and electrical components.

Impact Award Winner
Nigeria’s SaferMom provides pregnant and new mothers with simple tools to help make informed health decisions via sms, voice services and its mobile app. SaferMom uses a chain of community health partners and mobile technology to track the health of pregnant moms and newborn babies, immunization schedules for babies, nutrition and behavioral routines based on their fetal development stages and antenatal care. This service is available in the English, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo and Pidgin languages.

Economic Empowerment

Innovation Challenge Award Winner
Founded in South Africa, Hyperion Development is a social enterprise that has built the first online course platform for computer science education supported by the largest online community of software developers in Africa. Hyperion Development allows anyone to take online courses in coding with a personal computer or mobile phone; even without a broadband connection, which fewer than 1% of Africans have.

Impact Award Winner
Launched in Ghana, Mutti by mPharma is a drug affordability service that enables patients to access high quality medicine at lower prices with flexible payment terms through micro-payments. Mutti means medicine in Bemba, a Zambian language. They also operate in Nigeria, Zambia and Cote D’Ivoire, targeting three main chronic conditions: hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Impact Award Winner
Nigeria’s Tuteria connects people seeking to learn with people around them who can teach. Tuteria provides an online platform which allows users to find, evaluate, book and pay for lessons with competent local tutors, coaches, instructors and mentors.

Source: Internet.org

Applications are now open for the sixth edition of the Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA) Awards that’s expected to happen in 2017. Submissions will run for three months  – from Tuesday, September 27, 2016 to Tuesday, January 3, 2017 – and it’s open to enterprises and individuals that have invested in delivering market-oriented solutions for African-led development.

IPA is an initiative of the African Innovation Foundation (AIF). Every year, interested startups compete for a chance to be one of the three winners who share the $150,000 prize (basically $5,000 each).

IPA is looking for applications in social and economic innovation including manufacturing and service industry, health and well-being, agriculture and agri-business, environment, energy and water, and ICT showcasing ground-breaking innovations. Other ventures are also welcome to apply, though.

Individuals interested in applying for IPA 2017 should click here.

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved new appointments in 13 Federal Government agencies.

The appointments according to a statement by the Director (Press) in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Bolaji Adebiyi, include Mr. Joseph Ari as Director-General of Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) as Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

According to TechCabal, Dr Pantami is a professor of Computer & Information Systems.

Dr. Pantami, who is currently a professor of Computer & Information Systems at the Islamic University of Madina, will be taking over from Dr. Vincent Olatunji, who resumed as the Acting DG earlier this year in January. The previous DG, Mr. Peter Jack was suspended in January over allegations of illegal employments amongst other wrong doings.

Wale Ayeni , a former investor with EchoVC, has joined IFC. According to a news brief, he will be focusing on investments into African companies on behalf of IFC.

Wale Ayeni has over a decade of global technology experience spanning several roles including Venture Capital, Investment Banking, Corporate Development, and Microprocessor & ASIC chip design. Wale currently leads venture capital early-stage investments in disruptive startups across various technology sectors for Orange in North America. Orange is a $50B global telecoms company with over 260MM subscribers in Europe, Middle East and Africa and actively invests $500K – $3MM early-stage companies – recent investments in the US includes Veniam(Mesh Networks), Chain (Blockchain), WEVR (Virtual Reality).

Prior to this Wale was with J.P. Morgan’s Technology Investment Banking group in San Francisco where he successfully executed over $12B worth of closed transactions spanning mergers & acquisitions to IPOs for large-cap technology clients including Facebook, Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Intel Corp., AMD, Shutterfly, etc. Wale started his career as an Engineer, and in his previous technology career Wale was a microprocessor design Engineer with Intel Corp. where he led critical aspects of Intel’s “CSI” chip architecture – the biggest micro-architecture change in Intel’s history. He also led aspects of the very first “Snapdragon” chipsets working at Qualcomm Inc.’s chip design center enabling the initial smartphone designs.

Wale has an MBA from Dartmouth College, and his Bachelor’s degree with distinguished “Red diploma” from Moscow University. He is a Kauffman Venture Capital Fellow, he is a recipient of the top global 100 Rising Stars award in Corporate Venture, and is extremely passionate around frontier market VC investments.