Boost Up start-up competition announces local winners
Three entrepreneurs, Victoria Haihambo (Agelvipa Online), Timoteus Nangombe (Possible Investments CC) and Festus Malakia (Unique Empowerment and Employment Initiative Foundation) are the Namibian winners of the Boost Up 2020 start-up competition and online incubator programme.
The programme is aimed at supporting early stage start-ups that use technology to solve societal challenges in Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. The programme is divided into three phases starting with the set up training which provides entrepreneurs with practical tools to package their business idea and develop a pitch to attract their target market.
After the training, selected committed startups who are eager to make an impact, have a scalable business model, and want to become more investable competed in the scale up national pitch competitions in their base countries.
The Set Up trainings and Stand Up competitions were organised separately in each of the Boost Up country by the Southern Africa Innovation Support Programme and the Connected Hubs. The top startups in each Stand Up competition then proceed to the Scale Up online incubator and pitch final, where they will compete against each other to be selected as the Boost Up 2020 winner.
Namibia’s Scale Up competition took place on 21 August. Following an intense competition of three-minute pitches to a team of seasoned judges from the Connected Hub network, three
promising Namibian startups were selected to represent Namibia during Scale Up, which has been
launched on 8 September.
Locally, the selected winning products by Haihambo, Nangombe and Malakia include an ‘Online Store’, ‘Connect-Africa’ and ‘Coachpedia’, respectively.
The Online store creates a market for women-led micro-businesses and start-ups and provides access to capacity building programmes for the less fortunate women who might not be able to afford training by allowing women to sell their products on the online store.
‘Connect-Africa’, is a mobile and web format stand-alone application serving as a one-stop shop application for hearing and visually impaired people, while ‘Coachpedia’is a digital education platform that will enable users to access qualified and experienced mentors, educators, and information in different languages.
In Namibia, the programme is supported by the National Commission on Research, Science and Technology (NCRST) and the Southern Africa Innovation Support Programme, with assistance from Namibian Connected Hubs network members the Namibia Business Innovation Institute, GEN Namibia, Dololo and the UNDP Accelerator Lab.
