18 Aug 2022

Two budding local entrepreneurs have made it to this year’s top 50 nominees for the Jack Ma Foundation flagship programme dubbed Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH).

The two, Ms Melissa Tafila and Mr Tendekayi Katsiga, are among other entrepreneurs representing 18 African countries who were selected from a pool of 21 000 applications from across all 54 African countries who had applied for the grant.

The nominees will compete for a share in the US$ 1.5 million (about P18.8 million) grant.

Other nominees include 13 from Nigeria, Egypt (10), Kenya (4), South Africa (4), Tanzania (3), Somalia (2) and Ethiopia (2) while Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Madagascar, Guinea, Ghana, Cameroon, Burundi, Burkina Faso and Benin have one nominee each.

Ms Tafila is co-founder of Conexus Proprietary Limited, an IT company that specialises in technology driven educational products and services.

The company, in partnership with Orange Botswana, introduced ATLEGA Mobile Education, a learner-centered learning environment that is inclusive and addresses the need for continuous access to learning materials.

The mobile education programme, which has over 60 000 subscribers, assists learners to achieve their learning goals.

Mr Katsiga is a founder of Deaftronics (Pty) Ltd, a company that assembles and provides solar rechargeable hearing aids and accessories, with a goal of making total hearing a reality for the developing world and undeserved communities.

The company has developed the first rechargeable hearing aid battery, which lasts two to three years and can be used in 80 per cent of hearing aids on the market.

It has also developed a mobile application which allows for hearing screening assessments.

Meanwhilea media release from ABH states that nominees are currently undergoing several rounds of evaluation leading up to the grand finale to be held in November.

The release says the ultimate winner would get US$ 300 000 (about P3.8 million), first runner up receive US$ 250 000 (about P3.1 million) while the second runner up will receive US$150 000 (about P1.9 million).

It says each of the top 10 finalists will receive US$ 100 000 (about P1.3 million) on top of the networking, learning opportunities and support.

In last year’s addition, Bulb World founder and chief executive officer, Mr Ketshephaone Jacob made it to the top 10, which attracted a reward of P1.13 million.

Besides monetary award, ABH offers opportunities in training, mentorship and access to a community of international leaders and innovators, industry experts, investors and accelerators. ENDS