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AFRICAN GERMAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS ACADEMY COMPETITION AGEA ( PRIZE AWARD).

PREFACE
As part of its accreditation, the AGEA network collaborates with devoted academic and business mates in Africa and Germany to promote practice– acquainted entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurship creation and developing business start-ups for Africa. One of the flagship products that AGEA delivers is its periodic AGEA Business Idea Competition (ABIC). ABIC is organised to reach out, identify and support innovative entrepreneurial results to African challenges by African scholars, entrepreneurs, academics and experimenters within the AGEA network and beyond. This time, the idea competition focuses on generating entrepreneurial and commercially feasible results from exploration that can come spin–off launch-ups or companies.

Universities (and other HEIs) worldwide induce new knowledge through different exploration conditioning. Technological inventions are also crucial issues of exploration at universities and HEIs. Still, in utmost universities, exploration only contributes to advancing the scientific knowledge frontier. Important of the new knowledge and technologies generated through exploration at universities remain shelved, unexploited and infrequently commercialised into products and/ or services for the request that profit society at large. As a result, a knowledge and technology transfer gap exists in numerous fields. While this is a global challenge, the gap is considered wider in developing surrounds like Africa.

As demonstrated by many universities that have been structured to convert new knowledge into products and services through spin-offs companies, the base for the university’s growth and spin-off or exploration– grounded launch-up collaboration is complementary. The impact of enterprises forming from exploration– grounded results is apparent in the performing returns ( profitable, social, technological and/ or environmental) from commercialising for the universities, the experimenters, entrepreneurs, and the larger society. These spin-off or start-up enterprises, in exchange, give finances and job openings to the university to induce further knowledge through farther exploration conditioning.

To promote exploration– grounded spin-off entrepreneurship, experimenters, academic staff and scholars at HEIs need to develop their wisdom in a way that can lead to real– world impact and be suitable to acclimatize the issues of their exploration into feasible marketable enterprises. ABIC 2021 therefore offers scholars, experimenters, academics at African universities as well as early– stage entrepreneurs (alumni) the occasion to initiate their entrepreneurial peregrinations leading to the establishment of exploration spin–off launch-ups.

OBJECTIVE AND COMPASS
The overarching end of ABIC 2021 is to give the occasion for graduate and postgraduate ( masters and doctoral) scholars and experimenters at African universities to disinter their entrepreneurial capacities by generating applicable and feasible business results through their scientific exploration endeavours. It’s anticipated that the business idea competition will foster skill development in business creativity, design thinking and encourage entrepreneurial exertion within the scientific exploration community at African universities as it offers youthful African experimenters a platform to partake their innovative entrepreneurial results forming from scientific exploration.

ABIC 2021 is open to cessions with innovative ideas and results from all fields of scientific exploration, sectors and diligence. These include but aren’t limited to sectors similar as health, education, husbandry, information technology, finance and commerce, enterprise development and trade, transport, water and sanitation, among others. It’s important that the result or product emanates from ongoing or completed scientific exploration accepted by scholars or exploration and academic staff at an African University. The submitted ideas should therefore offer sustainable results to real– work challenges which satisfying a request need, especially but not limited to Africa. Beforehand– stage entrepreneurs who are university alumni can also share in the competition as platoon members with scholars or experimenters.

PARTICIPATION
-Who can share?
-Interested persons from universities, exploration institutions and other HEIs in Africa can share in the competition. Eligible actors must be

-Scholars ( Masters and PhD)
-Academic staff ( speakers, professors) and experimenters
. Beforehand– stage entrepreneurs (university alumni – Maids, Masters or Doctorate)
. How to share
Participation can be in one of two (2) forms

An individual pupil, experimenter, academic staff; or
. A platoon conforming of scholars, experimenters, and entrepreneurs. At least one platoon member should be a pupil, academic staff or experimenter.
Womanish participation The participation of women is largely encouraged in this competition. Brigades are encouraged to consider involving women as platoon members where possible.

Please note the following

-Each person can share only formerly in the competition, either as an individual or a platoon member. This implies that a sharing existent can only be a member of one platoon for this competition.
A sharing individual or platoon can submit only one entry into the competition. Multiple sessions from the same existent or platoon are inferior.

-The business idea you intend to submit should be grounded on academic/ scientific exploration conducted by or had at least one of the platoon members involved.
Stages of the Competition

The following are the stages for the competition

-Stage 1 Registration and Submission of Idea

-Stage 2 Evaluation and Selection of Top 6

-Stage 3 Pitch Training and Development of Pitch Video for Top 6

-Stage 4 Online Final Event and Selection of Top 3 Winners

REGISTRATION
To join the competition, eligible individualities and brigades are needed to register their participation as an individual or platoon You’ll be needed to give brief information about the actors in a short online form. Click on the Registration Link below.

You’ll admit an dispatch with farther instructions on the coming step to give further information on your idea on the Innolytics Platform.

Submission of Idea on Innolytics
-The coming step involves submitting details of the business idea in the structure handed in our invention operation gate – Innolytics. The platform is set up to grease and guide actors to give the jury with the demanded information for assessing the cessions. Please prepare the following information in advance for the Innolytics gate.

-An epitome of the business idea being submitted, including the exploration focus leading to the result to the problem.
-Problem What’s the main problem your idea is seeking to break? Why is the issue a problem?
Result ( product) Grounded on your exploration results, how are you planning to break the problem? Give a pictorial description of the preceding product or service as much aspossible.However, include prints or vids of the product model or prototype in the submission, If available. What makes your result innovative and from challengers or current results?

-Guests and Market Openings Who are the guests or heirs of the result? What’s the request eventuality of your idea?
Coffers What crucial coffers would be needed to apply your idea in the request?
Important You’ll be needed to give substantiation of the exploration conducted. For this, any of the following documents will serve
. Title and Protestation runners of Masters or PhD thesis indicating the person who conducted the exploration at the university.

-Exploration published in a journal by the experimenter (s). Brand issues must be clarified in this case.
The information handed on the exploration will becross-checked and vindicated with the university or institution as the competition processes.

Watch Step-by- step Videotape Companion on the Innolytics Platform

EVALUATION CRITERIAL
Each idea will be assessed by three (3) observers grounded on the following criteria

-Applicability How applicable is the problem being answered by the idea for the specified target group? -How –significant is the idea for the targeted request?
-Feasibility Can the idea be really converted into a product or service? Is the right technology available to insure the realisation of the idea?
-Request Vacuity How seductive is the result for implicit guests in comparison to being results?
-Marketable Viability and Sustainability How high is the eventuality for success on the request? Can the product be fluently retailed to the proposed guests at a competitive price? Can the idea be enforced in a sustainable way to induce acceptable profit?
Impact To what extent can the result impact society – economically, socially and/ or environmentally?
. Each submission will be assigned three (3) observers to rate each submission grounded on the outlined criteria. An average standing will be reckoned for each submission. The cessions will be ranked grounded on the average standing. The Top 6 ideas will progress to the final stage of the competition.

AWARD AND PRIZE
The named Top 6 cessions will have to produce a short pitch videotape ( outside 3 twinkles) that will be vented in the online Final Event on 30 November 2021. Actors will have the chance to respond to questions and interpretations from the final Jury. The jury will award scores to each Top 6 cessions. The Top 3 winners for the AGEA Business Idea Competition 2021 will be determined by the total scores amassed by each idea.

Also, an Followership award will be presented to the submission that receives the loftiest number of votes from the sharing followership in the Final Event. An online voting channel will be used and details will be communicated latterly.

PRIZE
The Top 3 ideas will admit the following prizes

First Prize –€
. Second Prize –€ 500
Third Prize –€ 300
Followership Award –€ 500

Post-Competition Support
Thepost-competition support is available to all innovative and promising ideas that enter the competition, anyhow of whether end up as prize winners or not. The following support will be extended to brigades or individualities that will be named for their innovative ideas.

Incubation Support Innovative ideas with pledge will be linked and handed with incubation support for commercialisation. This will be enforced through the network of AGEA mates in Africa and Germany. For illustration, the Centre for Business Development – Kumasi Business Incubator at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana, INES Incubation Centre at INES-Ruhengeri in Rwanda, and the Self-Management Initiative Leipzig (SMILE) at Leipzig University, in Germany.
Coaching and Mentoring Ideas will be linked to transnational business development experts within the AGEA Network who’ll serve as trainers and instructors. The trainers and instructors will work with the individualities or brigades to shape the ideas into unfavorable business models and business plans.
Training Specialised knowledge and chops are needed to manage launch-ups successfully. Thus, acclimatized training sessions will be organised for the brigades to give the knowledge, chops and tools demanded to manage the launch-up. This training will be delivered in collaboration with SMILE, which has over the once 15 times supported over 600 launch-ups in Germany and further than€ 42 million in backing support for launch-ups. External experts will be brought in when needed to give a comprehensive training.
Support for backing operations Named ideas will have access to the vast experience and moxie available within AGEA to support their operation for farther backing from funding institutions in Germany and away.
Support through Intellectual Property (IP) affiliated issues.

 

TIMELINES
-Registration Portal Opens 13 September 2021
-Submission Portal Closes-Deadline 31 October 2021
-Evaluation and Selection of Top 6 Ideas 01-07 November 2021
-Advertisement of Top 6 Ideas 08 November 2021
-Pitching Webinar10/11 November 2021
-Preparation and Submission of Top 6 Pitch Vids 12 November-30 November 2021
-Final Awards Event (Online) 07 December 2021
-Post-Competition Support begins January 2022

Downloads
Call for Cessions – AGEA Idea Competition

 

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