The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa has announced the launch of its so-called Tech African Women program (TAW), encouraging female-led idea stage startups from Ethiopia, Senegal, Tanzania and Tunisia to become applicants of the scheme.
TAW’s main objective is the empowerment of female founders by leveraging their skills in order to build strong tech startups from scratch, accelerate the transformation of project ideas into validated business models and to develop alliances between different African ecosystems, an UNECA statement says.
As one of the United Nation’s five regional commissions , the UNECA’s aim is to promote the economic and social development of its members, facilitate intra-regional integration and help in strengthening international cooperation for Africa’s development.
To see out the TAW scheme to its conclusion, the UNECA is in partnership with Betacube, the 2019-created venture builder helping agencies build startups whose founders show exceptional promise of growth with particular emphasis on their innovation programs and funding.
Under the TAW scheme, which runs from August to December 2022, three main phases will be covered.
They include intensive three-day training bootcamps and pitching competitions to be held in Tunisia, Senegal, Ethiopia and Tanzania in partnership with local ecosystem players with the winner bagging a cash prize of $2000.
The scheme will also run a two-month online incubation program for the best 2 startups from each country that will allow them to reach market & investment readiness and a final event in Rwanda where eight startups will be invited to pitch to win the final prize of the program (a grant of 7000$ for the best startup)
”TAW targets female-led and idea-stage tech startups and offers teams an exclusive opportunity to acquire new entrepreneurial skills, establish partnership with their African peers, increase regional business visibility and access funds.It supports ideas addressingSustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by developing the capacity of female entrepreneurs who desire to understand how to play a role in the continent’s development and want to deep dive into building impact-driven startups” the UNECA statement explains.
It says that through the course of the incubation program, teams will be allowed access to a pool of tech developers and designers who will develop their MVPs free of charge and work closely with top experts in Marketing and Finance in addition to the participation in tailored webinars provided by international trainers.
Applicants for the program will have to be citizens of Tunisia, Tanzania, Senegal and Ethiopia with an idea of a tech startup addressing at least one of the SDGs.
They must also be female aged between 18 and 35 years old and be able to communicate fluently in French or English.
Applications are open until August 10th for Tunisian applicants and August 17th for those of Ethiopia, Senegal and Tanzania.
WN/as/APA