The 2013 Orange African Social Venture Prize for Startup Entrepreneurs.

Application Deadline:September 20 2013

What if you were the Orange African Social Entrepreneur of the year 2013?

The Orange African Social Venture Prize will once again reward three entrepreneurs or start-ups offering products or services that make innovative use of ICTs to meet the needs of people on the African continent in fields as varied as healthcare, agriculture, education, energy, industry and trade.

Orange is committed to financially supporting and offering its expertise to the management of the growing small and midsize companies who are awarded this prize.

The prize-winning projects in 2012 involved mobile technology used to assist traders in food products in Ivory Coast (Vivuus Limited), a system launched in Kenya to improve the treatment of waste (Takachar) and the creation of an e-commerce site to allow people in the Senegalese diaspora to shop online for their families in Dakar.

This year, internet users will once again be able to vote online for their favourite project using the Orange portal in Africa www.StarAfrica.com. The project voted “online favourite” will be submitted directly to the jury along with the other finalists’ projects preselected by the experts and will therefore have the maximum possible chance of being among the three winners of the 2013 Awards.

In 2012, the Egyptian start-up “Innovative Electronic Employment Platform” won the prize with more than 50,000 votes.

The 3 projects designated by the jury will receive a donation:

• 1st prize: 25 000 euros,
• 2nd prize: 15 000 euros,
• 3rd prize: 10 000 euros.

In addition to receiving an endowment of 10,000 to 25,000 euros, the three prize-winners will receive six months of support from entrepreneurial and ICT experts.

Moreover, and for the first year, the winner will benefit from a patent application that will be submitted and paid by Orange.

Who can take part?

Any entrepreneur aged 21 or over, or company that has existed for less than three years at the time of the competition, regardless of nationality, can enter the awards free of charge. The projects submitted must have plans to deploy their service in at least one of the African countries where Orange is present and make innovative use of information and communication technologies to contribute to improving the living conditions of people in those countries.

Applications may be submitted between 14 May and 20 September 2013.

Visit www.starafrica.com for More Information.