Asisungule Eswatini Awards – Apply Now!

Deadline: 16-Jul-21

Nominations are now open for the Asisungule Eswatini Awards to help enterprises to survive and grow through the vulnerable early stages of development and become bankable and competitive businesses.

Scope

• A total number of 150 Inventors and innovators will be evaluated and selected. A total of 27 applicants will be winners from the 9 sectors.

Aims

The aim is to;

• To enable the public to obtain new technological knowledge and inspire other inventors to innovate further while avoiding “reinventing the wheel”.
• To increase market exposure, networks and opportunities for nominees and winners.
• To reward inventors and innovators, especially the youth and women, for their time, effort, money and creativity.
• To increase the number and value of locally generated inventions and innovations in the local and exports markets.

Award Details

• Fintech Category
  • 1^st Prize – E15 000.00
  • 2^nd Prize – E10 000.00
  • 3^rd Prize – E5 000.00
• Other categories
  • 1^st Prize – E5 000.00
  • 2^nd Prize – E3 000.00
  • 3^rd Prize – Gift Hamper

Eligibility Criteria

• An individual or team aged 7 years and above or a start-up ( incorporated or not) that is either at formation, market validation or scale-up phase
• The applicant must either have an innovation or an invention in the following sectors:
  • Information and communication technology
  • Engineering and Industrial designs
  • Fintech
  • Bio-technology and health
  • Green-Climate Environment
  • Food and Agriculture
  • Young inventors and innovators award
  • Inventors and Innovators living with disabilities
  • Female Game Changer
• Key
  • Female Game changer: A female inventor or innovator of any age, in any category who has emerged as a disrupter.
  • Young Inventors and Innovators aged 7 years to 17 years on a class of their own.

Selection Criteria

The selection criteria will focus on a product or business model that is generating sales income or is gaining users/customers, combined any of the following:

• Inventions
  • An Invention is a product or a process that provides in general, a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem (WIPO)
    • Invention is protected through patent law or at least filed for protection
    • A new or novel technology or technique or industrial design
    • Technical information about the features of the invention
    • How the invention is made or carried out?
    • Industrially applicable (technologically, scientifically, mechanically, technically) or usable which means it can be used in any kind of industry
• Innovations
  • A new or significantly improved product (goods or service) or process (Oslo manual). A process of bringing an invention to the users, to the market place, to industrial application (WIPO).
    • One or a combination of the following:
      • New product or a significant improvement of an existing one that is generating sales income or is gaining users/customers; OR
      • A new business model or improvement of an existing one that is generating sales income
      • A cheaper version of an existing product that is generating sales income or is gaining users/customers
      • Production for or service delivery to a new set of customers and generation of sales income
    • Description of innovation and supporting information.
• How the applicants be selected
  • First Phase
    • The first phase will take place at RSTP where the business incubation team will select the top 5 per category (9 categories).
  • Second Phase
    • The second phase will be done via a voting lines which will be opened for ONLY the top 5 participants per category selected in phase 1. This is where the public will be allowed to vote for their best and favorite innovation/invention winner.
    • The public vote only counts for 10%.
  • Third Phase
    • In this phase three winners per category will be chosen by the selection committee.

For more information, visit http://itbi.org.sz/asisunguleeswatini/