Orange Social Venture Prize in Africa and the Middle East 2024

Applications are currently open for the 2024 Orange Social Venture Prize in Africa and the Middle East. Technological innovation, an obvious driver of development, can only attain its full potential if it is backed by a solid, successful commercial proposal that addresses present and future social and environmental demands.

Orange’s Social Venture Prize recognizes and promotes the good entrepreneurial spirit of innovative start-ups, while simultaneously fostering innovation.Since 2011, the International Grand Prix competition has accepted start-ups from 17 African and Middle Eastern nations. It discovers, rewards, and promotes business models that have a beneficial social and environmental effect.

To encourage sustainable, responsible, and inclusive development, the International Women’s Prize was introduced in 2020, promoting business ventures led by women entrepreneurs.

Requirements:

Candidates must:

• Be 21 years and over
• Present a social entrepreneurship project based on NICT (New Information and Communication Technologies)
• The candidates must present a project that involves at least one of the 17 countries
• Individual: you must be 21 or older on the competition’s launch date.
• Legal entity: your company must have been operating for less than 3 years on the competition’s launch date.
• Your project must be up and running in one of Orange’s 17 countries in Africa and the Middle East:
• Botswana,
• Burkina Faso,
• Cameroon,
• Democratic Republic of the Congo,
• Egypt,
• Equatorial Guinea,
• Guinea Bissau,
• Guinea Conakry,
• Ivory Coast
• Jordan,
• Liberia,
• Madagascar,
• Mali, Morocco,
• Central African Republic,
• Senegal,
• Sierra Leone,
• and Tunisia

Awards:

International Grand Prix

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

The 10 finalists within the OSVP International Grand Prix and the winner of the International Women’s Prize will also receive 6 to 9 months of business development support.

International Women’s Prize: Winner: €20,000

Details:

• The first phase will take place between May 27 to August 30: Each application will be assessed according to the rules of the national competitions and up to three winners will be selected in each country. The international phase will then begin. An evaluation committee of Orange employees will preselect 10 finalists from the national winners.
• The second international phase will take place from September 2 to 26: These finalists will be evaluated by a grand jury of influential representatives from the African tech world, who will choose the three overall winners of the International Grand Prix.
• At the end of October: This jury will also be responsible for choosing the winner of the International Women’s Prize.

Click here to apply