Orange aims to encourage the use of ICT for development across the continent with its Social Venture Prize, which will reward entrepreneurs for developing products and services to meet the continent's health, agriculture, education, energy or industrial needs.
Dubbed the Orange African Social Venture Prize, it will recognise four projects which can demonstrate a strong social or environmental impact, innovation in the use of digital communication tools, and the possibility of distributing the product or service to several countries.
Orange says winning projects will receive grants of EUR10 000 (R144 000), EUR15 000 (R217 000) and EUR25 000 (R362 000), respectively.
Myl`ene Blin, spokesperson for Orange, says the financial rewards are not enough to ensure sustainable impact, which is why the company offers winners six months of coaching by ICT experts and entrepreneurs.
"Orange has helped previous winners to get a bank loan, to participate in conferences or take part in other challenges, and some of these are now part of the incubator programme in Paris or Dakar - where Orange is a partner of an IT business incubator," she says.
The company adds that Internet users can vote online for their preferred project on Orange's entertainment portal in Africa, www.starafrica.com, with the winner standing a chance to be among top four winners for 2014.
"Any entrepreneur aged 21 or over, or legal entity that has been in existence for fewer than three years at the time of the competition, may participate at no cost and with no restriction on nationality," says Orange in a statement. Submitted projects must be designed to be deployed in at least one of the African countries in which Orange operates.
The competition closes 19 September and entries are submitted on the Star Africa online portal.
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