There is plenty of entrepreneurial energy in Africa. Innovative startups are popping up all across the continent. However,
many African entrepreneurs, while highly qualified, still lack access to funding opportunities and like-minded people (coders, designers and business experts). This is a huge loss, as entrepreneurship can be a true engine for prosperity.
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This is where the AMPION Venture Bus comes in: AMPION is a non-profit dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs in Africa and to helping them become local change makers. Our Venture Buses are 5-day startup-competitions: international and African entrepreneurs team up to create innovative solutions to local challenges - and they do it on a bus!
Why this will be a success!
Organizing the Venture Bus is a real challenge. However, we have a great team of volunteers that already helped to make the 2013 Venture Bus into a huge success. This year, there are more than 40 people in over 20 countries dedicating their free time to this project. We can also rely on an extensive network of partners and friends in Africa, and across the globe (VC4Africa, AfriLabs, the German Society for International Cooperation, the UN Foundation, and many more).
The pilot bus in 2013 already created eight startups tailored for the African market, many of them are still active. To give you an example, the app sterio.me was developed on last years' bus and created an E-Learning solution to surmount obstacles in the sector of education in Africa. Sterio.me has been honoured as Finalist at the Harvard Africa Business Award as well as the MIT Africa Innovate and Mobile World Congress “4YFN” competitions. It was voted as #6 in the list of “10 Most Innovative Companies in Africa” for 2014 by Fast Company.
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Other success stories include
Bribed (an anti-bribery app) who are now collaborating with Transparency International in Germany and
Workforce (a mobile matching platform for informal labor). The startup SaiSai was co-founded by one of our 2013 Venture Bus alumni, Jabulani Mpofu. His colleague Takunda Chingonzoh even pitched the business model to US President Barack Obama at the African Leaders Summit,
live on Bloomberg TV.
AMPION is also collaborating closely with many African and global media outlets, be it TV broadcasters, radio or print media. We want to help get the African continent out of the negative headlines and highlight the many opportunities the continent has to offer. Together with our partners we strive to tell African success stories and make sure the world gets to see them (see examples and links to our media coverage at the bottom).
Why on a bus?
Being on the road, the entrepreneurs do not
create business models from within an ivory tower, but instead get in touch with local tech communities and innovation centers. This way, they get immediate feedback on their startup ideas: their feasibility, usability and acceptance among potential users.
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For international mentors and experts, the roadtrip is more exciting than the
average tech conference as well. Many of them are on a tight schedule and welcome the
opportunity to visit many new tech markets in a short period of time.
Last but not least, networking on a bus creates a different kind of bond
that goes way beyond the usual exchange of business cards in conference rooms. We speak from experience: networks established on the Venture Bus are very close-knit.
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Beyond the bus
Our philosophy is to create sustainable impact. To achieve that, AMPION and its partner organizations support the entrepreneurial talents long after the bus tour has ended. This means, your support will have a long lasting impact, as well: While this campaign also offers classic perks like T-Shirts, we are exploring a new approach for donations of €99 and above -- you as a supporter will have the possibility to “adopt” one of the winning AMPION Venture Bus startups or a single African entrepreneur. Depending on the your budget, you may choose from different lengths of support. See all the details in the perks to the right.
The moment our participants get off the bus, they get the opportunity to pitch their ideas to investors and entrepreneurs at prestigious tech conferences like AfricaCom in front of a high-level audience. After that, the best teams and individuals receive an AMPION Fellowship: mentorship, financial support and working space (in cooperation with AfriLabs). With your support the creative solutions developed by our participants become sustainable businesses.
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In general, we have a strong network of partner organizations with whom we coordinate our efforts. These not only include the innovation hubs (like the CC Hub in Nigeria or Bandwidthbarn in South Africa) and startup accelerators (i. e. 88mph, Seed Enginge) but also other non-profits like Akirachix, an organization that empowers women in tech.
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Why we need your donation
There are many talented entrepreneurs in
Africa, but some of them could never afford to undertake this entrepreneurial journey. We want the most innovative minds on our buses, regardless of social status or economic background. A large share of your donation will be used to subsidize the trip for those who do not have the budget to afford this life-changing opportunity.
Another big part of the funding will be deployed for the AMPION Fellowship Programme: to
help the best startups created on the bus to live up to their
potential, and unleash positive impact. We want our
participants to launch sustainable startups with significant social impact. This is why we will incubate the best eight startup created on the Venture Buses with funding, mentorship and office spaces.
Lastly, there are the operational costs: organizing the Venture Buses is a financial challenge for a non-profit organization consisting solely of volunteers.
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This way, your donations will:
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Empower
160 entrepreneurial talents through mentoring and networking
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Improve entrepreneurial ecosystems in the regions our Venture Bus travels to
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Help
to launch 16+ great startup ideas tackling African needs and priorities
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Provide
support for the eight best teams to further develop their startup ideas
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Create valuable job opportunities in Africa through the startups developed
on the Venture Bus
- Help convince millions of Africans of the beauty of entrepreneurship - we have a really strong PR department
By focusing on entrepreneurship, we help kick-start the economic engine.
The entrepreneurs we support are the real heroes: they solve local needs,
create employment, and hopefully become a positive force in their societies.
So where
will the buses actually go?
We want to run buses in each of the four African regions (North,
West, East and South), covering a total of 16 countries. During those trips we will visit:
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Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia (Northern Venture Bus)
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Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria (Western Venture Bus)
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Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda (Eastern Venture Bus)
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Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South-Africa (Southern Venture Bus)
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We encourage our participants to develop solutions in many functional areas, be it healthcare, education, energy, finance or agriculture. We combine these fields with IT solutions which function as an enabler reducing barriers to entry, lowering cost, speeding up growth, extending reach and thereby enhancing the potential impact of the business ideas.
Why you should support us
We are a non-profit and use your donations to
enable African entrepreneurs to become local change makers. While we are not able to
offer you products that equal the value of your donation, we do however want to show you our appreciation (and that of our participants) and have prepared some perks. Our personal favorite? Adopting an actual startup! You will have the possibility to become the patron of one of our winning startups and accompany them as they grow to become a valuable change-maker in their local community. In return you will receive personal updates on the progress of their work: we'll give you the opportunity to have phone calls with the entrepreneurs so they can explain their startup to you and elaborate on how it will make a difference.
In the media
"(...) each corner of the mobile bus was transformed into a hive of entrepreneurial activity: the side windows were plastered with rows of colorful Post-it notes; the seats were occupied by sleep-deprived programmers tapping away at their sticker-covered laptops; the aisle was transformed into a conference room for intense brainstorming sessions."
Selected features (click logo for a link to the publication - if still available):
BBC World News report - aired after they met up with us in 2013:
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Other ways to help
Even though every dollar counts, we understand that some of you may not be
in the financial position to donate. Or maybe you have donated, and want to do
even more to back the project. If so, please tell your friends about the
initiative, and share this campaign.
If you would like to
discuss other ways to help, or if you simply have questions, feel free to get
in touch at contact@ampion.org.