Famfa Oil Limited, indigenous Nigerian oil exploration and production company, has collaborated with Futurize to co-fund the launch of its first annual Fuel Africa Innovation Programme, organised in partnership with AstraZeneca and Microsoft.
The programme, also co-funded by Bristol Myers Squibb, virtually brought together hundreds of students and recent alumni from 12 universities across seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa for an entrepreneurship bootcamp and innovation competition.
During the innovation competition, participants formed multi-disciplinary teams, received industry insights, mentorship and hands-on training through workshops to generate solutions for early-stage business ventures. At the end, the teams pitched their ideas to a panel of judges and were awarded pre-seed investment through cash prizes and opportunities to advance their careers.
Digital training is crucial to sustainable development, boosting entrepreneurship and job creation.
“By bridging the gap between education and the current labor markets, entrepreneurship programmes like Fuel Africa can unlock the tremendous talent universities hold,” said Futurize CEO, Rhea Singhla.
Participants had opportunities to network and create a collaborative ecosystem that could drive innovation to grow Africa’s economy.
Fuel Africa 2022 bought together the brightest minds across universities in sub-Saharan Africa to address some of the continent’s most pressing challenges in healthcare with impactful solutions while leveraging the power of cross-collaboration and technology and, according to Rotimi Alakija, Famfa Oil Limited, the only way one can move forward is through innovation, and this can only be done by investing in fresh solutions to solve current problems.
This year’s two topic areas focused on creating solutions that will enable access to healthcare as well as the management and early detection of non-communicable diseases. The mission: to equip young entrepreneurs with the resources to build high-potential venture ideas and to contribute to sustainable development globally.
Yacine Barro Bourgault, Enablement Lead: Africa Transformation Office at Microsoft, disclosed that Microsoft, through the Africa Transformation Office, was committed to supporting educational transformation across Africa with access to learning tools, resources and technology.