Rebecca Ejifoma
Famfa Oil Limited, Nigeria’s leading indigenous oil exploration and production company, has partnered Futurise to co-fund the launch of its first annual Fuel Africa Innovation Programme.
It was organised in partnership with AstraZeneca and Microsoft and co-funded by Bristol Myers Squibb from March 17 to March 25 this year.
It virtually brought together hundreds of students and recent alumni from 12 universities across seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for an entrepreneurship bootcamp and innovation competition.
During the innovation competition, participants formed multi-disciplinary teams, received industry insights, mentorship, and hands-on training through workshops to generate solutions for early-stage business ventures.
At the end, the teams pitched their ideas to a panel of judges and were awarded pre-seed investment through cash prizes and opportunities to advance their careers.Digital training is crucial to sustainable development, boosting entrepreneurship and job creation.
“By bridging the gap between education and the current labor markets, entrepreneurship programmes like Fuel Africa can unlock the tremendous talent universities hold,” says Futurise CEO, Rhea Singhla.
Participants were afforded the opportunities to network with peers and international experts to create a collaborative ecosystem that can drive innovation to grow the African economy.
Fuel Africa 2022 aims to address some of the continent’s most pressing challenges in healthcare and proffer impactful solutions while leveraging the power of cross-collaboration and technology, according to Famfa Oil Limited representative, Mr. Rotimi Alakija.
“The only way one can move forward is through innovation, and this can only be done by investing in fresh solutions to solve current problems,” he added.
This year’s topics, he divulged, focus on creating solutions that will enable access to healthcare as well as the management and early detection of non-communicable diseases.
For Alakija, the mission was to equip young entrepreneurs with the resources to build high-potential venture ideas and to contribute to sustainable development globally.
African Cluster Country President at AstraZeneca, Barbara Nel, pointed out that “Through A Catalyst Network, AstraZeneca’s interconnected and dynamic global network of more than 20 health innovation hubs, we are co-creating challenge-based solutions with and for patients”.
She cited the World Health Organisation (WHO), which says that non-communicable diseases are steadily increasing in prevalence in Africa, and they are predicted to overtake communicable diseases by the year 2030.
“Over time, NCDshave grown to become the leading cause of death worldwide. These numbers demonstrate the urgency in acting on it.
“By partnering Futurise, we wanted to offer students in Africa exciting opportunities to connect and collaborate with a truly global network of expertise and experience. This will help to accelerate innovation and ensure that more patients can get access to the latest health tech solutions,” she concluded.
