The African Rethink Awards promote the economic and social development of Africa through its young talents. It rewards innovative and performing start-ups, whose business model us duplicable on the African continent. The African Rethink Awards are open to any start-up meeting the following criteria, free of charge:
- To be created within the last 5 years,
- Founder is from African or its diaspora, and less than 35 years old,
- To lead an effective CSR policy,
- To present positive results,
- Service or product is innovative.
Furthermore, the winners of this edition of the ARA will benefit from a support to develop their enterprise. With its partners Global Youth Innovation Network (GYIN), MEDEF Ile-de-France, Innogence Pulse, ADN Factory, LABS-NS Lawyers, the African Rethink Awards set up a long-term platform to give start-ups an ecosystem granting them access to legal, accounting and management counseling, helping them find investors, training, mentoring and coaching them, giving them marketing and communication guidance.
The program aims at three major objectives:
- Encourage initiatives answering efficiently to Africa’s economic, social and environmental change issues.
- Support the entrepreneurship spirit, indispensable to mesh African countries’ economy with a dynamic private sector that meets consumers’ needs.
- Shed a light on promising projects to allow them to get the financial support they need, especially during their first transformation phase.
After a preselection phase, opened up until August 15th 2016, the selected candidates will be invited in Paris on October 22nd and 23rd during the Land of African Business’ meetings. They will present their business model, meet partners and investors, benefit from networking opportunities and a enjoy a wide international visibility. The ARA’s organization takes over their travel and housing expenses. Four prizes will be awarded to the laureates:
- The Great Prize, endowing €5000, rewards the entrepreneur from Africa or its diaspora presenting the most performing business plan
- The Women Entrepreneurship Prize, endowing €3000, rewards the exemplarity of a project led by a woman
- The Diaspora Prize, endowing €3000, rewards the involvement of an entrepreneur from the Diaspora in the continent’s development
- The Jury Prize compliments a project favoring the transition towards a viable and sustainable economic model in Africa