In the early hours of Monday 5th November, Google announced finalists for its Impact Challenge in three African countries where the Challenge will hold this year. The countries include South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.
The Google Impact Challenge is an initiative that supports non-profits and social enterprises with game-changing ideas to create economic opportunity in their communities. Social Impact organizations and social driven tech startups submitted their most innovative proposals to compete for the grand prize of $250,000 for the top 4 social enterprises per country. After a rigorous selection process, Google has presented 12 finalists each for Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.
From these 12 finalists from each country, over the next 3 weeks, the public will vote for the ideas they consider most innovative, sustainable and can drive community impact. Public voting will close on November 25th. From the same pool of finalists, the judges will select 3 winners after hearing in-person pitches from them and also announce the People’s choice winner.
The winners will receive cash and access to guidance, technical assistance and mentorship from Google. Each of the four winners will receive a $250,000 grant and the remaining eight finalists will receive a $125,000 grant. All 12 finalists will receive a package of strategic support, training, funding and Google volunteers from Google.org.
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See a list of the Finalists from South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria:
The 12 Start-ups from South Africa include:
- Youth Employment Service
- mLab CodeUp!
- The MakerSpace Foundation
- Quirky 30 NPC
- Gradesmatch
- hearX Group
- GreenFingers Mobile
- Clothes to Good
- Corruption Watch: BUA MZANSI
- Saide’s African Storybook initiative
- Memeza Shout Crime Prevention
- RLabs (Zlto Digital Platform)
The 12 Start-ups from Nigeria are:
- Project Enable Africa
- Seed Tracker – IITA
- HelpMum
- BudgIT Foundation
- Bunmi Adedayo Foundation (BAF)
- Solar Sister Nigeria
- Vetsark
- The Cece Yara Foundation
- The Roothub Tech 101
- Rural Development and Reformation Foundation (RUDERF)
- LearnFactory Nigeria
- Junior Achievement Nigeria
12 Kenyan Finalists Include:
- The Somo Project
- Sauti East Africa
- UjuziKilimo Solutions
- Global Minimum InLab
- Creatives Garage
- GiveDirectly Kenya
- African Prisons Project
- M-Shule
- NairoBits Trust
- AfriScout—A PCI Social Enterprise
- Startup Lions
- Lewa Wildlife Conservancy
Voting has officially commenced and you can vote for your most innovative ideas via the Google Impact Challenge Website.
Click here to vote for ideas from South Africa, here for Nigeria and here for Kenya.
