About
The African Innovation Prize supported by De La Rue is a University Business Plan Competition. It was founded in 2009, working in the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in Rwanda. In 2012 it will launch in Rwanda’s National University and the School of Finance and Banking. It is also launching at the University of Sierra Leone, with the support of De La Rue Identity Systems.
Please be aware that the African Innovation Prize Team are launching a new website for the 2012 competition. In the meanwhile for the latest news on entering the competition please join our Facebook group: The African Innovation Prize, and follow us on Twitter @AIPrize.
Business plan competitions encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. Competitions allow students to test out ideas in a safe environment supported by mentors, coaches and spurred by the incentive of seed funding. This valuable opportunity should be opened to students/budding entrepreneurs everywhere. In partnership with African Universities, the African Innovation Prize aims to help establish and run a first-rate student business plan competition for African University students. AIP is rooted in the belief that grassroots entrepreneurship is a key driver in knowledge creation and economic development. This iterative business plan competition will also help fuel long-term entrepreneurial thinking in the university ecosystem and enable prospects for new job creation.
Mission: The mission of the African Innovation Prize is to facilitate global entrepreneurship by encouraging university students from African countries to commercialize ideas and innovations; we will achieve this by creating a pan-African organization that provides inspiration, training and seed funding through business plan competitions for university students across the continent.
The beginnings:The concept of African Innovation Prize was first inspired by a public policy lecture given by President Paul Kagame at University of Cambridge in December 2008. In 2009, AIP established a partnership to run the first AIP Business Plan Competition at Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). The Competition commenced January 2010 at KIST. African Innovation Prize itself started with a grant from Cambridge University Entrepreneurs (CUE) Business Plan competition and believes in the catalytic power of business competitions for both economic and social development.
