CAPE TOWN – ORANGE has awarded €50 000 in prize money to start-ups committed to launching innovative projects that promote development in Africa.

The winners of the sixth edition of the Orange Social Venture Prize, this year emerging from Madagascar, Morocco and Senegal, have been announced at the AfricaCom in Cape Town, South Africa.

Morocco’s MedTrucks was the overall winner (€ 25 000). It was created to support patients and healthcare professionals through the deployment of mobile care units in “medical deserts” in Morocco and other emerging countries.

The second prize (€15 000) went to Nanoé of Madagascar. Its ambition is to deploy a new kind of electrification system, known as “lateral electrification”, in order to meet the short-term needs of remote populations that do not have access to the main energy grid.

Ma Tontine of Senegal claimed the third prize of (€10 000) for efforts to solve the problem of how to provide financial services, including the provision of small loans to the poor.

More than 750 candidates responded to the call for projects, which ran from May to September 2016.

Bruno Mettling, CEO of Orange MEA, says, “With nearly 3 500 projects filed since 2011, the Orange Social Venture prize has grown into a huge success.”

– CAJ News