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Africa Tech Festival 2022 Awards (AfricaCom) Shortlist Announced

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2022 is a year of milestones. Not only does Africa Tech Festival – the home of AfricaCom – turn 25 this year, but the Awards that acknowledge Africa’s greatest telecoms and technology contributors to its progression as a digitally inclusive and enhanced continent, will also celebrate their 15th anniversary, and has included three new categories – The Start-up of the Year, the HealthTech Innovation of the Year, and the VC / Investor of the Year Award.

The awards, this year sponsored by Intelsat, will once again be hosted in person and at a glittering event that will take place in Cape Town’s prestigious Waterfront on Wednesday 9 November. They are a tribute to the hard work, forward thinking and dedication of the individuals and companies who are making it happen.

The shortlist has been revealed and will be narrowed down by the public, with the winners being determined by a panel of industry judges. Public voting closes on Wednesday 23 October 2022 at 23H59 CAT.

Hans Geldenhuys, Director, Intelsat Africa, said: “It feels very special to get back together with the tech and telecoms community to celebrate the champions and trailblazers that power positive change through technology. These kind of celebrations are essential to keep the community connected and inspired to push boundaries, which is a true reflection of Intelsat’s values. That’s why it was such an obvious choice to be involved with the Africa Tech Festival Awards and especially the Changing Lives category.”

Commenting on the 2022 rendition, James Williams Director, Events | Connecting Africa | Informa Tech, organisers of Africa Tech Festival, remarked that: “Technology-backed and based innovation, some of which will be on show at the event in Cape Town this year, has played a large role in propelling Africa into becoming commercially competitive, and in many cases outshining more so-called developed economies. Whilst technology itself is powerful, it is the people and the companies who create and deliver these technological marvels and solutions who are the real heroes, and it is they we look forward to feting in Cape Town in November.

“Each year, the quality and quantity of entries improves. 2022 is no different, and it has been a tough choice to narrow it down, consequently, this year’s shortlist is somewhat extended.”

The shortlisted nominees for 2022 Africa tech Festival Awards are:

Start-Up of the Year
This award recognises the most innovative start-up, that has showcased potential over the last year for high growth and purpose-driven impact.

· Womenovate – a female focused online learning platform, based in Nigeria, offering women in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture and Mathematics) access to resources, training courses and jobs from world-class universities and companies, helping to close the gender gap/disparity and increase female participation in STEAM fields and sectors.

· Ujuzikilimo Solutions – based in Western Kenya, the company empowers small scale farmers and stakeholders to make fast, informed and data-driven decisions on the go, by collecting and making sense of agricultural data through sensors and farm data analytics tools.
· Carscan – a mobile augmented reality app powered by AI, that’s the first of its kind in the motor industry, Carscan uses computer vision and machine learning to scan vehicle damages and provide real-time vehicle health condition and repair estimates.
· LayUp Technologies – an advanced recurring payments system focused on driving financial inclusion in Africa through cloud-based pre-payment technology, and services businesses with digitised subscriptions, memberships, and debit order payments; making interest-free instalments simple and easy to use for both merchants and their customers.

· Sendoff Funeral App – Sendoff digitizes the entire funeral process, providing convenience, information, and a 10X better CX, radically changing the approach to deathcare, with its user-friendly, intuitive mobile app that houses a library of online resources.

HealthTech Innovation of the Year
New for 2022, this award recognises emerging technologies for healthcare across Africa, that are changing lives, advancing healthcare, and impacting individuals and communities for the better.

· Nextwear Technologies – the very first wearable technology start-up in Nigeria, and inventor of a smart bra that can detect breast cancer in its earliest stages.

· Medismarts Limited – Medismarts is a MedTech firm that leverages technology, data, and foresight to identify and create viable and innovative healthcare solutions that cut across key areas such as Hospital Management Systems, Health Insurance/Claims Processing Software, Self-Service Portals that automate claims submission and patient management, and more.
· Zurihealth – Provides affordable and accessible healthcare solutions through an all-inclusive service that caters for individuals with a mobile device, regardless of their location, health history and social status.
· OuiCare – OuiCare is an electronic health record that allows the collection, storage, processing, and provision of secure medical data for patients, healthcare professionals and institutions. This health book is coupled with telemedicine and medical appointment scheduling, which is a major advance in the field of health in Cameroon and Africa.

· One HealthTech – a global, distributed, volunteer-led community that drives better equality, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility in health innovation.

· Kena Health – a South African health tech app enabling anyone to have an on-demand online doctors’ consultation from their smartphone.

VC / Investor of the Year Award

This Award recognises the most impactful fund in Africa, which provides investment to support, build, and scale their investee businesses.

· South African Housing and Infrastructure Fund – it diversified its real estate investment portfolio into high-growth, service-oriented assets further up the real estate development value chain. The fund identified optical fibre and renewable energy as the next growth frontiers for their affordable housing and land portfolio. Metro Fibre Networks was a high growth emerging player in South Africa’s Fibre-To-The-Home and Fibre-To-The-Business markets.

· Enygma Ventures – an investment fund for female entrepreneurs and women founders, focused on Southern Africa or SADC.

· Meridiam – an asset and fund manager invested into African infrastructure, including 4 solar power plants in Senegal, a geothermal power plant in Ethiopia, a hydropower plan in Gabon, a biomass site in Cote d’Ivoire, and solar home systems in West Africa. It has now invested into helping build and develop over 12 tier III carrier-neutral data centres across the African continent.

Fintech Innovation of the Year

This Award recognises the organisation, project or individual who has disrupted the African Fintech space

· Premiercredit Zambia
· FinBraine Fintech Pvt. Ltd

· Kyanda Africa

· Stitch

· Floatpays (Pty) Ltd

· Chipper Cash

Green ICT Champion

This award celebrates the individual or organisation leading the development and integration of sustainable energy solutions

· Raxio Data Centres
· Faith Wawira Nyaga, Senior ICT Officer, Water Resources Authority

· Dr. Olufunso Somorin, Regional Principal Officer at the African Development Bank.

· Ihs Group & Huawei “Green Power” Innovation

Connectivity Project of the Year

This award celebrates the network providers and services going above-and-beyond to provide connectivity in an environment where demand has never been higher, and broadband has become a lifeline for access to education & economic activity.

· Curvalux – The Curvalux Connectivity Project in South Africa

· Open Access Data Centres

· Nuran Wireless

· The Kayamandi Fibre Project (KFP)

· Vodacom ZA and Huawei

· Avanti Communications: Project iMlango – Led by Avanti Communications and its partners (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), sQuid, Whizz Education and Camara Education)

· Ericsson & MTN Benin

CXO of the Year

This award recognises the outstanding achievements of CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, CDOs and others in driving development within the African tech space.

· Samuel Chiwanda, Click Mobile Malawi

· Ernst Fonternel is Chief Digital Officer at MTN South Africa.

· Daniel Ale is the Partner & Chief Technology Officer at Prunedge

· Derrick Ashong is the Founder & CEO of AMP Global Technologies

· Sanjay Kumar Kai is the Group Director at MFI Document Solutions Limited

· Pieter De Villiers, CEO and co-founder at Clickatell

Female Innovator of the Year

This award will recognise the outstanding achievements of women who are playing a crucial role in African technology and telecommunications

· Rutendo Mugadza-Mugwagwa is the Founder/CEO of Zimbabwe Innovation & Legal-Tech Association

· Oladiwura Oladepo is the Co-Founder and Executive Director at Tech4Dev

· Chilufya Mutale, founder and CxO at Premiercredit Zambia Limited

· Irene Phoebe Kiwia, Co-Founder At Adanian Labs
· Chineme Onuoha Areola is the GM for Local & International Business Development at Broadbased Communications Ltd.

Most Innovative Product or Service

This award recognises a game-changing product or service that has provided its target market with significant new opportunities for revenue growth or customer satisfaction.

· Orange’s Mahali mobile application

· MTN SA & Huawei – a fully digitalized, intelligent & experience-driven digital transformation platform

· Innovation City Cape Town – Innovation City is an invitation-only world-class network that aims to help accelerate digital innovation in Cape Town through fostering co-creation.

· Premise Data – a sophisticated market intelligence platform that blends machine learning with human intelligence to empower decision makers with the high-quality, trustworthy data they need

· Jiji Cars – Jiji Cars (formerly Cars45) is a leading Autotech company in Africa and a vertical on the biggest online Marketplace in Nigeria

· Clickatell – Chat2Pay, a digital payment enabler that is a new channel for businesses to request payments over chat channels.

Africa’s Rising Star

Celebrating the emerging talent in African tech – recognising and identifying future leaders and disruptors.

· Kessia Ntirandekura, Co-Founder Ecobba
· Bhavik Pattni, Chief Of Staff and VP Business Operations at the Raxio Group.

· ADA TAPILY, Developer, Project Manager, Problem Solver, and Tech Entrepreneur at Massira
· Nonhlanhla Cynthia Mhlongo is the Founder and CEO of Khwezi Innovations.

· Joseph Lumbahe, Lead Engineer, Computer Vision at Aizatron Group and a contracted (via Aizatron) Fraud Detection Engineer at MTN South Africa.

Changing Lives Award

Recognising organisations and initiatives that have made a significant contribution to helping us build a more accessible and inclusive digital world

· SeamlessHR and Special Olympics Nigeria – Codeable initiative

· Hormuud Telecom – humanitarian portal (Somalia)

· Project Isizwe – #AfricaUncapped

· M-Kopa – combines mobile payments and IoT connectivity to enable people in remote parts of Africa to purchase the products they need, and power them affordably.

· The Ethiopian Industrial Parks Development Corporation – an engine of rapid industrialization that nurtures manufacturing industries, accelerates economic transformation, promotes, and attracts both domestic and foreign investors

· ANSI – the Smart Villages for Rural growth and Financial Inclusion Project for Niger.

For the full list of nominees and their projects, please visit the Africa Tech Festival Awards website here.

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