The Africa Netpreneur Prize Initiative (ANPI), a US$10 million Prize competition for African entrepreneurs, founded by the Jack Ma Foundation will officially call for applications starting from the 27th of March 2019.
The ANPI will for the next ten years host a pitch competition in Africa where ten finalists from across the continent will compete for US$1 million in total prize money.
Nailab, a Nairobi-based incubation center is ANPI’s continental partner.
“The Netpreneur Prize Initiative has brought together a strong ecosystem of players to support both technology-driven and traditional businesses. We look forward to unveiling the full slate of regional partners and to receiving applications from promising African entrepreneurs in the coming weeks,” said Sam Gichuru, Founder and CEO, Nailab.
All ten finalists will receive grant funding from the Jack Ma Foundation, as well as access to the Netpreneur community of African business leaders to leverage the community’s shared expertise, best practices, and resources.
“By 2030, we hope to identify and shine a spotlight on 100 African entrepreneur heroes who will inspire the continent. From day one, our approach has been community-based and focused on inclusiveness; to be truly for Africans and by Africans. To realize these goals, we are excited to work with Nailab as our implementing partner in Africa and multiple African partners across to continent,” said Beth Yu, Executive Secretary-General, Jack Ma Foundation.
The competition is open to entrepreneurs who are nationals from any of the 54 African countries from any industry. Young people and female entrepreneurs are highly encouraged to apply.
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Key activities and dates for the prize are:
- Applications Launch: 27th March 2019
- Deadline for applications: 30th June 2019
- Announcement of the top 50 regional finalists: August 2019
- Announcement of the final 10 finalists: October 2019
- Grand Finale pitch event: November 2019
