*** Closing date for applications: Friday, October 21, 2022***
Background
In March 2022, the Alliance for Entrepreneurial Universities in Africa (AEU) was launched in Rwanda during the Africa Regional Science, Technology and Innovation Forum 2022. The main aim of this call is to advance entrepreneurship through education, research and innovation. The call is open to all incubators, accelerators, innovation hubs, science parks and related support infrastructure and entities for innovators and entrepreneurs that are managed or partly run by universities.
About the Call
Are you the best entity at supporting and bringing innovative entrepreneurs to market? As of 2019. Africa was home to about 648 tech hubs, majority of which are run by universities. This call is designed for university-based entities that incubate, nurture and/or fast track the development and growth of businesses and/or support individuals and teams to bring innovative technologies to market. This is your opportunity to showcase your services, infrastructure and other support mechanisms that make you the come-to place and home for individuals, teams and firms that wish to commercialize their products or bring businesses to market.
To get the most out of this opportunity, it is important that your submission addresses or showcases the novelty of the product offerings (i.e., goods and services) offered to emerging and upcoming entrepreneurs and technology providers and the impact achieved, and/or business support practices of your entity with a focus on improvements in efficiency and productivity of your entity’s operations.
The benefits of participation
The top 10 short-listed teams may be invited to the Forum on Promoting Entrepreneurship through Education for a Stronger Recovery from 25-27 October 2022, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where they will get the opportunity to share their case to a wider audience. The final winning teams will be selected by a team of independent judges and announced on 27 November 2022. Furthermore, the winning teams will also be invited to share their cases at the Africa Science, Technology and Innovation Forum for Sustainable Development in March 2023 among other forums across Africa. You may also be linked to firms and technological and investment entities that may be willing to partner with you.
Eligibility criteria
All legal entities in Africa may submit ONLY one application form. Beyond these generalities, the following criteria need to be met:
- The entity submitting the forms must be the same as the owner of the infrastructure or its legal representative.
- For this call, entities to be considered should have supported at three or more innovators and entrepreneurs that have successfully brought products and/or firms to the market in the last three (3) years.
- Your entity is at least three (3) years old – whether hosted or independent entity owned wholly or partly owned by a university (e.g., partnership between university(ies) and other parties).
Send your applications to:
Complete the application Here Online or send your application as per the attached PDF File to:
- Asfaw Yitna – yitna@un.org
- Gedion Workneh – workneh@un.org