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Anzisha Prize Announces 2020 Applications, Celebrates A Decade Of Empowering African Entrepreneurs
Anzisha Prize 2019 Fellows celebrate their victories (Source: Anzisha Prize)
Every year, the prize celebrates 20 African entrepreneurs, aged 22 years and younger, each of whom have a chance to win a shared prize of US$100,000
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, February 17, 2020 – Today, the Anzisha Prize–Africa’s premier award and fellowship for Africa’s youngest entrepreneurs – is excited to announce that the 2020 call for applications is now open. Every year, the prize celebrates 20 African entrepreneurs, aged 22 years and younger, each of whom have a chance to win a shared prize of US$100,000. The grand prize winner receives US$25,000, the 1st runner-up US$15,000, and 2nd runner-up US$12,500. Every finalist receives US$2,500.
In addition to the cash prize, selected entrepreneurs will join 120 previous winners and become Anzisha Fellows, receiving business consulting support and coaching services by a team of industry experts. They also gain access to the Young Entrepreneurs Fund – a catalytic matching fund designed to strengthen the credibility of very young entrepreneurs through investment.
“It has been an exciting 10-year journey with some of the continent’s brightest and youngest entrepreneurs. With the help of key partners and those who share in our vision, we’ve been able to support and celebrate very young entrepreneurs who represent the diversity of the African continent; entrepreneurs who tackle youth unemployment with vigour and courage beyond their years,” says, Melissa Mbazo-Ekpenyong, Deputy Director of the Anzisha Prize.
To celebrate the decennial, the Anzisha Prize has planned five regional events across the continent, including South Africa, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, and Kenya. The events end in October with the Anzisha Prize Forum in Nairobi, Kenya where the 2020 winners will be announced. Each event is designed to catalyze conversations around youth entrepreneurship and to gather key stakeholders within the entrepreneurship landscape to collaborate with and support these young entrepreneurs.
“The Anzisha Prize has grown to become a holistic and comprehensive prize program that celebrates, nurtures, and advocates on behalf of Africa’s young job creators,” says Daniel Hailu, Regional Head Eastern and Southern Africa Programs, Mastercard Foundation. “Ensuring young entrepreneurs have a clear pathway to learn and succeed is a core component of the Mastercard Foundation’s Young Africa Works strategy, and we encourage entrepreneurs, especially young women to apply.”
Young African entrepreneurs between the ages of 15-22 years old, who are running job generative businesses, are encouraged to apply before 31 March 2020. Past winners of the prize include 2019 grand prize winner, education entrepreneur, Yannick Kimanuka from Democratic Republic Congo (DRC). Yannick grew up in the war-torn North Kivu eastern Province of DRC where she saw the effect that conflict had on schools in her community and vowed to empower children by increasing access to quality education. By the age of 20, Yannick founded KIM’s School Complex – a nursery and primary school which aims to improve the education of young children in her community.
As the program continues to influence and inspire young people to seek entrepreneurship as a career path, the road ahead is a promising one. To encapsulate the last 10 years of the program, the Anzisha Prize has chosen the word ‘Sankofa’ in the Ghanaian Twi language, which means “We have the capacity to revisit the past and extract knowledge and wisdom that we need to remake the future“.
Entrepreneurs are advised to download the application guide or apply for the prize at anzishaprize.org/apply.
For more information on the Anzisha Prize, to apply, and to nominate an entrepreneur, please visit the Anzisha Prize website.
Mastercard and NAPS, a leading Moroccan fintech company, have initiated a collaboration to develop innovative payment solutions for individuals and businesses. The partnership consolidates the strong historical relationship between the two entities. NAPS is on a mission to expand the horizons of digital payments in Morocco. NAPS benefits from the 30+ years of expertise of M2M Group in software for electronic payments and biometric identity. As Mastercard’s partner, NAPS benefits from access to its extensive network, expertise and wide-ranging portfolio of products and services, powered by innovative and secure technologies.
In line with NAPS’s long-term strategy, the collaboration will boost the company’s innovation capabilities through Mastercard’s advanced technology and optimize time to market for its upcoming digital offerings.
“At Mastercard, we are committed to supporting a global network of innovators with the aim of building a more accessible and sustainable digital economy. We serve as a trusted partner of pioneering fintech companies across all stages of development, helping them achieve agility and speed. We are delighted to share our technological expertise with NAPS to pursue our common objective of advancing inclusive growth,” said Mohamed Benomar, Country General Manager, MENA West, Mastercard.
“The partnership with Mastercard will reinforce our position as a market-leading fintech company and support the culture of innovation that is at the core of everything we do. By accelerating the development of digital payment solutions in Morocco, it will also contribute to cementing the country’s status as a premier fintech hub in the Arab world,” said Hassan Ghellab, CEO, NAPS.
NAPS and Mastercard aim to create new ecosystems of digital services in Morocco to unlock the full potential of digital payments and provide users with an enhanced experience through innovative services in order to promote financial inclusion. These digital ecosystems will enable the development of high-value applications and explore new service opportunities, contributing to innovation and the digital transformation of the sector.
The CGAP report Fintechs Across the Arab World, issued in December 2020, highlighted Morocco as the third-largest fintech hub among the 22 member countries of the Arab League. High mobile coverage, a large unbanked population, an abundant supply of talent, infrastructure upgrades and government initiatives encouraging the uptake of digital financial services, coupled with enabling regulations, are among the key drivers of growth in this space.
Press Release
MoCaFi, founded by Nigerian Wole Coaxum, raises $23.5M funding to end racial wealth inequality
MoCaFi Founder and CEO, Wole Coaxum (Image: Wole Coaxum)
Mobility Capital Finance, Inc. (“MoCaFi”), a turnkey fintech platform leading financial empowerment for traditionally underserved communities, announces $23.5M in Series-B financing, led by Commerce Ventures. MoCaFi provides Financial Services as Infrastructure™ to various levels of government to improve the efficiency of providing financial and other resources to underserved communities across the country. The company’s mission is to help excluded communities create wealth through better access to public, private, and social capital.
Founded in 2016 by Wole Coaxum, a Black former Wall Street Executive who was inspired by the 2014 murder of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, to address stark social inequities by closing the racial wealth gap. MoCaFi advances a vision of socioeconomic justice by creating pathways to financial empowerment for millions of unbanked or underbanked Americans. With over $100 million of financial resources disbursed to underserved communities across 15 cities and counties across the country, MoCaFi is utilizing its capital to fulfill that vision and scale.
“Commerce Ventures has been unbelievably impressed by MoCaFi’s passion for helping underserved communities access high-quality, affordable financial services,” said Dan Rosen, Founding Partner and Head of Fintech Investments at Commerce Ventures. “MoCaFi’s scalable payments platform enables government agencies (Federal, State and Local) to disburse benefits directly to vulnerable populations in some of the country’s largest municipalities, including Los Angeles, CA, St. Louis, MO and Birmingham, AL. We’re excited to see the company deliver similar value to the next dozen municipality clients while also enabling the under-banked to get access to digital banking services and pathways to accessing credit and building wealth.”
“We are pleased to be joined by new investment partners with such valuable expertise. MoCaFi has established unique government partnerships that are capable of creating dramatic impact at scale, for millions of Americans currently unable to access quality financial services and benefits.”, said Tom Hutton, lead Series A Investor and investor in the Series B round, MoCaFi Board Member and accomplished Fintech venture capitalist.
Billions of dollars in public benefits are left unspent due to various complexities and inefficiencies in disbursement methods. MoCaFi’s platform provides governments with a solution that increases adoption and delivers benefits efficiently while reducing fraud.
“MoCaFi has been the perfect partner for the City of Birmingham. Over the last three years, we have delivered almost $20 million in emergency assistance to thousands of families – keeping them in their homes and keeping the lights on, and we couldn’t have done it without MoCaFi. More than just a payment processor- the MoCaFi team has been a fully engaged thought partner from conception through execution. We are incredibly appreciative of their support and hope to work with them again soon!” said Kelvin Datcher, Senior Advisor to the Mayor of Birmingham.
“We are excited to welcome the new investors to the MoCaFi mission, and appreciate the support of our existing investors, many of whom continue to show their trust by participating in the latest round . This Series B round allows MoCaFi to scale quickly and validates our unique business proposition. With this capital and more importantly, support from these terrific strategic investors, we can continue to innovate and bring our products and services to more municipalities, government entities and community partners – ultimately helping more people.” said Wole Coaxum, MoCaFi CEO & Founder.
The Republic of Angola has become the 21st African Member State and the 1st Lusophone Member State of pan-African insurer, Africa Trade Insurance Agency – ATI, after paying a capital subscription of USD25 million. The membership was funded the Angolan National Treasury resources and proceeds from the landmark BITA water project – a strategic public investment for the construction of infrastructure for the treatment, supply and storage of drinking water that will benefit 2.5 million people in Angola.
Welcoming Angola’s membership, ATI’s Chief Executive Officer, Manuel Moses, noted the country’s demonstration of its commitment to diversify its economy through ATI’s trade and investment risk mitigation solutions.
“We are happy to support Angola in its quest to economic diversification and becoming an agricultural powerhouse on the African continent. Angola’s membership is timely as ATI’s risk mitigation and credit enhancement services will act as a catalyst for strengthening and diversifying Angola’s economy, supporting both increased investment, exports and trade under Africa’s continental framework of the AfCFTA,” Mr. Manuel said.
Under this one of a kind blended finance and guarantee innovative structure, the Republic of Angola – along with the lenders covered by ATI under the transaction – agreed for the use of proceeds under the syndicated loan to also include the financing for the purpose of Angola becoming a member of ATI. ATI provided guarantee and insurance support for this World Bank’s partially guaranteed facility to the Government of Angola for the expansion and improvement of water supply service in the urban and peri-urban belts of Luanda.
Current exposure
ATI’s gross exposure in Angola, the largest country in Southern Africa Region, currently stands at USD467M mainly in construction, energy & gas, trade & transport, water supply and wholesale & retail sectors, with transactions valued at USD1.4B.
“This development was made possible because of ATI’s pan African mandate that allows the organization to cover transactions in Angola and beyond, despite ATI non-membership. Now that Angola is a fully-fledged shareholder of ATI, the country can fully access more of ATI’s guarantee solutions to attract more Foreign Direct Investments and boost its internal and external trade across the region,” Mr. Manual explained.
Angola’s economy is mainly driven by its oil sector but the country seeks to pursue new growth models for economic diversification through the agricultural sector and private sector development.
With ATI’s support, Angola is on the path to fiscal consolidation, manage their debt ceiling, increase in public and private investment, in order to resume the ascending curve of sustainable and inclusive economic growth as well as human development.
ATI has grown from a small African start-up in 2001 into a pan-African institution with presence across Africa and with a significant global reach. Besides Angola, other member countries include Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Institutional members include African Development Bank, African Reinsurance Corporation, Atradius Group, Chubb, CESCE (Spanish ECA), Ministry of Finance India (represented by ECGC), SACE SIMEST, The Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Trade and Development Bank (TDB), Kenya-Re, The PTA Reinsurance Company (Zep-Re), and the UK Export Finance.
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Press Release3 days agoMoCaFi, founded by Nigerian Wole Coaxum, raises $23.5M funding to end racial wealth inequality
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