Deadline: 2-Dec-20
Applications are now open for the Startup North-East Virtual Incubation Program that is a 4-month entrepreneurship program designed to help startups solve prevailing problems that affect aid distribution and data management in the NorthEast.
This project seeks to identify and support innovative and technology-focused startups whose activities can create solutions to the problems in north east Nigeria, and especially address gaps in areas of aid distribution and data management.
Successful participants will be supported to deploy their applications to increase the availability of solutions that will support community, government and donor initiatives in rebuilding the region.
Focus Areas
Applications should focus on the following areas:
- Poor data management: This blindsides the aid organisations from knowing the actual gaps in the north east, which mitigates the efforts of aid distribution and hampers accountability in the region.
- Insecurity: Fewer organizations are willing to move outside the capital cities of the Northeastern states, to deliver aid to other areas. This poses a challenge for many organizations to find implementing partners and delivering programs outside of the city.
- Poor coordination and lack of good communication: There is poor coordination and lack of good communication among disaster management stakeholders
- Misappropriation of relief materials and funds: Local leaders sometimes divert and sell these relief materials, are nepotistic and bring only their family members to benefit from the aid provided by development organizations.
- Lack of insight: Non-consultation with local communities to determine actual need
- Unqualified personnel: The lack of trained personnel in handling aid distribution
- Extortion: Sex for cash, food items and non-food items with vulnerable women and girls in the IDP camps
- Poor data collection: Poor identification of households that require these relief services
- Mishandling of equipment: Physical cards provided to IDPs for identification, sometimes get missing or is reprinted so many times to enable them collect the relief materials multiple times
Benefits
- Grant: Business equity-free funding up to $3,000 each for 6 startups.
- Business Advisory: Get access to a pool of mentors and business experts
- Partnerships: Access to network of partners
Eligibility Criteria
In order to qualify for this funding, The following criteria have to be met:
- You must be operating in Nigeria
- The startup is in idea-stage or early-stage
- Can demonstrate the potential for future scale
- The solution must be solving problem around the key area of interest
- Startups should have a well-rounded, complementary team i.e. in-house capacity for product vision (what to build), technology (how to build it), and business (how to make money from it)
- Founders should have some unique insight or compelling worldview deep domain expertise and/or a strong grasp of the landscape an eye for detail tenacity, high conscientiousness, and a bias towards execution
- Solution should leverage technology
For more information, visit http://startupne.venturesplatform.com/