Female African innovators have been invited to apply for the Africa Innovation Fellowship powered by WomEng and the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation
The Africa Innovation Fellowship is a nine-month leadership & business development opportunity for female African innovators.
Applicants should have an early stage engineering innovation or startup. The Africa Innovation Fellowship aims to develop the talent pipeline for future cohorts of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation.
The Africa Innovation Fellowship (AIF) kicks off with an in-person training week in Kampala, Uganda from the 2 – 5 June 2019, focused on the idea and business incubation, leadership development, networking and getting pitch-ready. The Fellowship training week is followed by nine months of personalized virtual support with regular check-ins and milestones, ending in March 2020.
The prize for the winning idea will be an all-expenses-paid trip to London to attend the Global Grand Challenges Summit in September 2019.
Fellowship candidates who apply and are subsequently shortlisted for the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation will additionally receive individual coaching and mentoring to support to get them to pitch ready.
Eligibility Criteria:
- Applicants must be female individuals or small groups with a female lead applicant.
- Individual applicants must be citizens of a country within Sub-Saharan Africa*. For teams of two or more, the lead applicant must be a citizen of a country within Sub-Saharan Africa.
- The innovation must be based in a country in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Applicants must have an engineering innovation, though are not required to be an engineering graduate or student themselves.
- Industrial researchers and establishments are not eligible to apply.
- The lead applicant must be over the age of 18. There is no upper age limit.
- The applicant’s innovation can be any new product, technology or service, based on research in engineering defined in its broadest sense to encompass a wide range of fields, including: agricultural technology, biotechnology, chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer science, design engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, ICT, materials science, mechanical engineering, and medical engineering. If you are in any doubt that your area of expertise would be considered engineering, then please contact aif@womeng.org to discuss your application.
- Applicants should have an early stage engineering innovation and/or startup that:
- Will bring social and/or environmental benefits to a country/countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Is accompanied by an ambitious but realistic business plan which is near-ready or has been tested for commercial viability
- Has strong potential to be replicated and scaled up
Further requirements and information:
- Successful candidates must be available to travel to Uganda from 1 – 6 June 2019 for the Fellowship training week in its entirety.
- Successful candidates must be able to commit at least two to five hours a month from June 2019 to March 2020 for online/virtual support.
- For teams applying, only the lead applicant will be invited to attend the Fellowship training week.
- Only successful applicants will be notified by mid-May.
Application and programme timeline:
Applications open: 01 March 2019
Applications close: 01 April 2019
Successful candidates notified: 15 May 2019
Fellowship Week Uganda: 02 – 05 June 2019
Online support & mentoring: June – August 2019
Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation Submission deadline: 31 August 2019
Online support & mentoring: September 2019 – March 2020
* For the purposes of this Fellowship, Sub-Saharans African countries are:
Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland/eSwatini, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
