WomEng and the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation call application for Africa Innovation Fellowship. African Innovation Fellowship is the fully funded nine-month leadership and business development opportunity for female African innovators with an early-stage engineering innovation or startup. The Africa Innovation Fellowship aims to develop the talent pipeline for future cohorts of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation.

Benefits 

Successful candidates will have an opportunity to travel to Ghana from 13 to 18 June 2020 for the African Innovation Fellowship training week in its entirety. WomEng will cover the costs of round-trip economy airfares to Accra, accommodation, transfers, meals and program materials. In addition to that, the female lead applicant from the applying teams will have an opportunity to attend the Fellowship training week. But however, successful candidates must be able to commit at least two to five hours a month from June 2020 to March 2021 for online/virtual support.

Eligibilities 

• Applicants must be a female founder or co-founder. The individual can be from a diverse team of co-founders.
• Individual applicants must be citizens of a country within Sub-Saharan Africa. For teams of two or more, the lead applicant must be a citizen of a country within Sub-Saharan Africa. Similarly, innovation must be based in a country in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Applicants must have an engineering innovation, though they are not necessary to be engineering graduates or the student themselves. However, industrial researchers and establishments are not eligible to apply.
• The lead applicant must be over the age of 18. There is no upper age limit.
• The applicant’s innovation can be any new product, technology or service, based on research in engineering defined in its broadest sense to encompass a wide range of fields, including agricultural technology, biotechnology, chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer science, design engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, ICT, materials science, mechanical engineering, and medical engineering.
• If applicants have any doubt that their area of expertise would be considered engineering, then please contact [email protected] to discuss the application.

Requirements 

Applicants should have an early stage engineering innovation and/or startup that:

• Will bring social and/or environmental benefits to a country/countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Is accompanied by an ambitious but realistic business plan which is near-ready or has been tested for commercial viability.
• Has a strong potential to be replicated and scaled up.

Timeline 

• Applications open: 06 March 2020
• Applications close: 01 April 2020
• Successful candidates notified: 20 April 2020
• Fellowship Week Ghana: 14 to 17 June 2020
• Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation Submission deadline: 23 July 2020
• Online support & mentoring: June to March 2021

Eligible Countries 

Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland/eSwatini, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

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