Review of the 1st edition’s ARA winners, which took place in Paris, on December 11th 2015.
Great Prize:
1st: ONELAMP – Derrick Hosea OPIO (Uganda). ONELAMP is Africa’s lastmile on-demand delivery service for clean energy. It’s powered 100% by USSD technology enabling millions of offgrid African households order solar lights using their cell phones and enjoy door to door delivery using an existing transport infrastructure. ONELAMP targets 85 million people living without electricity access in East Africa.
2nd: ATINGAN SOLUTION – Francis Donald ZANHOUDAHO (Bénin). Atingan Solution SARL industrializes homes renewable energy in order to limit the pressure on forests. The device serves to cook.
3rd: ECOBAG SENEGAL – Amy MBENGUE (Sénégal). Econbag Senegal is a unit of collection and repurposing of plastic waste that brings a relevant solution to the waste management problems in Senegal.
Award for Women’s entrepreneurship:
1st: KICKLOANS – Stéphanie Mbida (USA/Cameroon). KickLoans is a microfinance organization that provides financial solutions to the working poor through loans, business training and savings. They primarily target women and the youth living on less than $2.5/day.
2nd: TANDAVALANA – Rinah Zo RAKOTONARIVO (Madagascar). For Madagascar, a country with a very high dependence on forest resources as main fuels, our NGO promotes the manufacture and dissemination of economical and efficient cook stoves: TsinjoHarena. They reduce wood consumption, limit deforestation and reduce greenhouse gases emission up to 2.73 ton per year per stove, while helping poor rural households to reduce their expenses on the purchase of wood energy.
3rd: BLOODBOOK – Ya Marina LOUGBEGNOU (Ivory Coast). Bloodbook is an application that can record you blood type and your family’s, and provide this information in case of emergency.
Diaspora Prize:
1st: ELUM – Cyril COLIN and Karim EL ALAMI (France/Morroco). eLum is a software company aiming to optimize the energy management in a commercial or industrial site in an African country. The software can: forecast the electricity demand of the building for the next day, the electricity production and realize a cost optimization allocation based on these two forecasts.
2nd: AFRIKA SOLAR – Mohamed HAIDARA (Mali/France). To overcome the lack of electricity in the villages and the selective power cuts in the cities, Afrika Solar manufactures solar lamps that allow lighting at night for 6 hours after reloading during the day.
3rd: E-COVER – Désiré Onyedika NWAOBASI (Senegal/Belgium). E-cover addresses the issue of waste, by transforming them into new products, according to the principles of circular economy.