Startup Tunisia won the 2021 Innovation Challenge of the African Telecommunications Union (ATU). Startup Tunisia, which provides grants and provides technical guidance to innovative startups, has managed, in just 2 years, to support 550 startups, as well as startup support organizations, by providing a supportive policy environment, investments and capacity building.
For these reasons the Tunisian organization claimed the maximum prize of $10.000 and the title, “2021 ATU Best Ecosystem Practice Enabling Youth ICT Innovation in Africa".
The competition, launched by the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), also saw the Tanzania Apps and Girls Initiative Coding, Mentoring and Incubation Clubs, and the Authority's ICT Innovation Program Zambia's ICT companies secured second and third place respectively, taking home $5.000 and $2.500. The first trained 34.686 girls with problem solving and coding skills, improved their academic performance in ICT and other STEM-related subjects, and led to the creation of 69 companies. The latter has successfully marketed over 30 start-ups, created over 100 jobs and worked with over 15 local partners.
Announcing the winners at the virtual awards ceremony headed by the Zambian Minister of Technology and Science, Hon. Felix C. MUTATI, Secretary General of (ATU), Mr. John OMO, affirmed the Union's commitment to inspiring the creation of an ecosystem in Africa that supports the development of homemade solutions to local challenges. “It remains our desire to enable a systemic perspective on innovation on the continent and I encourage all those interested in ICT to be open-minded to the idea of collaboration. (ATU) is open and ready to facilitate contact and communication between parties within our scope who wish to make deliberate efforts to work together. It is in this regard that I thank all Challenge partners, especially our title sponsor Huawei, for their collaboration and investment in innovation and skills promotion among African youth,” he said.
This year's edition of the Challenge identified institutions across Africa that create an enabling environment for young people to develop innovations in ICT. Among the institutions were classified as policy-making bodies, incubators, universities and non-profit organizations. This is in recognition of the critical role these organizations play and the importance of investing in fertile soil from which innovators can grow.
Applicants had to explain how they supported the innovations and were also asked to highlight two beneficiaries who profited from the practice.
Speaking during the ceremony, the president of the Huawei Carrier Business Group, Huawei Southern Africa Region, Mr. Samuel Chen, he requested "more investments in connectivity, energy and mobile money infrastructure that innovators can use to develop their innovations and through which citizens can access them ”While highlighting Huawei's commitment to supporting innovation and local skills as the key to the company's success:…“ for over 23 years, we have been supporting local innovation in Africa, building infrastructure from 2G to 5G, delivering innovative software such as mobile money and AI, and we will continue to build local talent and build platforms and products to enable African innovators to develop solutions to African challenges ", he said. Echoing Mr. OMO, David Chen also thanked co-sponsors and partners, Intel Corporation, GSM Association, and AfriLabs, for significantly contributing to the Challenge's success.
The main guest of the event praised the participants for their practices that respond to the African context and challenges and recognized that, in fact, innovation is what distinguishes and sustains competitive societies. While applauding the ATU and ITU initiative, he encouraged African governments to be open to sharing resources and good practices. "I congratulate all participants and I thank ATU and ITU for this initiative which is in fact a practical form of benchmarking with other peer countries on good practices to support innovations related to ICT and entrepreneurship in Africa", he said.
In addition to the financial award that will benefit them, all ten Challenge winners will have their practices recognized by the ITU and ATU and expanded worldwide as a “Ecosystem Stakeholders Best Practice” of ICT, attention that can help them scale their practice or be replicated across Africa to promote youth innovation. In addition, they will participate in a training camp organized by the ITU which, along with training the champion of innovator support, AfriLabs, during AfriLabs Hubs Learning Week, will help them to increase their impact."
The event also recognized seven additional best practices by ecosystem stakeholders across Africa. Recipients were After School STEM Clubs for Girls and Coding Boot Camps for Women (by Visiola Foundation, Nigeria), Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technological Development (by Zetech University, Kenya), COVID-19 Project for Zimbabwe (by African Researchers Connect , Zimbabwe), Huria Innovation Hub (by Open University of Tanzania), Innovation and Techno-Preneurship Acceleration (by St Joseph's University of Tanzania), ICT in Education (by Adamawa Code Kids, Cameroon) and Woman DNS Academy (by Internet Society , Chapter Benin).
