Applications are now invited for the 2014 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation which is aimed at stimulating, celebrating and rewarding innovation and entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Africa Prize encourages ambitious and talented sub-Saharan African engineers from all disciplines to apply their skills to develop scalable solutions to local challenges, highlighting the importance of engineering as an enabler of improved quality of life and economic development. Crucial commercialisation support will be awarded to a shortlist of innovative applicants, through a six month period of training and mentoring.
Worth of Award
- Following this period of mentorship, finalists will be invited to present at an event held in Africa and a winner will be selected to receive £25,000.
Eligibility
- Applications are invited from engineers affiliated with a university or research institute who have developed innovations that can provide scalable solutions to local challenges.
- Engineers from sub-Saharan Africa and from all engineering disciplines are eligible to enter.
- The Africa Prize is generously supported by The Shell Centenary Scholarship Fund, Consolidated Contractors Company, ConocoPhillips and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.
Applicants must be individuals or groups of no more than three people.
Individual applicants must be citizens of a country within sub-Saharan Africa and currently reside there (see Appendix A).
For teams of two, the lead applicant must be a citizen of a country within sub-Saharan Africa and currently reside there.
For teams of three, the lead applicant and one other team member must be citizens of a country within sub-Saharan Africa and currently reside there. • Applicants must be engineering researchers (in any discipline) who are affiliated with a research institute or university.
Engineering is defined in its broadest sense, encompassing a wide range of diverse fields, including but not limited to mechanical, civil, environmental, electrical & electronic, chemical, process, mining, materials, computing, software, biomedical, energy & power, transportation and manufacturing engineering. If you are in any doubt that your area of expertise would be considered engineering then please contact the Academy to discuss your application.
Applicants should have achieved the development of, and be in the early stages of commercialising an engineering innovation that: o will bring social and/or environmental benefits to country/countries in sub-Saharan Africa; o has strong potential to be replicated and scaled up; o is accompanied by an ambitious but realistic business plan which has strong commercial viability.
Industrial researchers and establishments are not eligible. • Evidence of previous attempts at commercialisation is not a prerequisite, but any such information is welcome and should be stated in the application.
How to apply
- Application forms can be downloaded from the Academy’s website (www.raeng.org.uk/africaprize) or emailed by request.
- The following documents must be attached to one email where possible, preferably in PDF format, and sent to [email protected] by midnight GMT on Friday 30 May 2014.
- A complete application will contain : application form;a letter of support from an affiliated university /research institute; CV of the applicant(s) (maximum two pages per applicant); a link to a video pitch from the lead applicant about their innovation (maximum two minutes).
- The Diversity Monitoring Form should be submitted as a separate document to [email protected] This is for monitoring purposes only and will not be used in the selection of the shortlist, finalists or winner. This is optional.
Any applications that are incomplete, late, do not adhere to the guidelines or contain false information will be rejected.
Please note that the maximum size email is 10Mb. Please do not change the font, the font size or margin settings when completing the application form.
All applications must be submitted in English.
Selected applicants will be contacted by email in September 2014.
Deadline: application closes on May 20, 2014.
Click here for more about the prize