What is Safaricom Appwiz? It is an initiative, now in its 2nd year, started by one of Kenya’s largest mobile services provider, Safaricom Limited, with an aim of providing young, innovative, and local mobile technology based startups in Kenya with training and mentorship opportunities necessary when looking to scale their products and grow their small enterprises into fully sustainable businesses.
The competition officially launched on 16th of July 2014 and is currently accepting submissions for startups looking to be mentored and incubated and submissions will close on the 10th of August 2014.
The incubatees are expected to be:
- Available to fully attend the 3-month incubation programme running from 1st September to 21st November 2014
- Have a 3 member team with various skill sets
- Be a Kenyan adult resident (living in Kenya and over 18 years of age)
The categories set for this year’s Appwiz include:
- Mobile for good and community development
- Financial Inclusion
- Smart Business and Cloud innovation
- Youth, Media and Entertainment
- and Infrastructure & Utilities
There will be an evaluation that will allow shortlisted applicants to demonstrate their prototypes as well as show their team structure and experience after which 15 finalists (start-ups) will be taken through an incubation process followed by a final judging which takes place on the 27th of November 2014.
What do the start-ups win?
The Grand Prize Winner gets to walk away with KES 1.5 Million (Payable in 3 installments based on milestone achievement)
1st Runner up Team will walk away with KES 1, 000,000 (Payable in 3 installments based on milestone achievement)
Each Category winner Team will of KES 200,000 (Payable in 2 installments subject to achieving milestones)
You can read more details about last year’s winners on JUUCHINI.
Apply to be part of this year’s challenge here.
