10 business heroes win Africa Netpreneur Prize
Five years ago, Temie GiwaTubosum's own traumatic delivery experience and watching mothers almost die while giving birth gave her the idea to contribute to maternal death reduction. This spawned Life Bank Nigeria, a medical logistics company.
The company helps hospitals find critically needed medical supplies such as blood, oxygen and vaccines, delivering them on time and in usable condition. So far the company has saved almost 6,000 lives.
"While I was lucky to have access to good healthcare since I was in the United States, I started thinking seriously about what was killing women in Africa during childbirth. I found out that postpartum hemorrhage, or bleeding after childbirth, was the largest cause of maternal death. I decided to dedicate myself to solving the problem," she said.
Giwa-Tubosum's dream to save more lives got a short on the arm when her company received $250,000 prize on Nov 16, after emerging as the top startup at the Africa Netpreneur Initiative during the Africa Business Heroes show held in
Ghana's capital Accra.
She plans to use the money to scale up the business in order to save thousands of lives in several cities across Nigeria.
Omar Shoukry Sakr, the founder of Nawah Scientific, an Egypt-based multidisciplinary research center on the natural and medical sciences, was the second prize winner, walking away with $150,000. Nawah Scientific is a core platform of high-tech research equipment that provides analytical and scientific services online and on-demand.
"Listening to the wonderful presentations, I couldn't imagine I would emerge in the top three. I believe judges had a hard time choosing the top winners," Sakr said.
Sakr expressed gratitude for being recognized, noting that bio technology is mostly not recognized as a profitable business. "I wish to see more scientists participate in the next Africa Netpreneur Prize," he said.
Sakr plans to use the prize to target more market segments and expand to other African countries. "My take away from the judges is remaining focused on using the funds to avoid distractions," he said.
Christelle Kwazera, 25 years old and the youngest finalist, walked away with $100,000. Kwazera runs Water Access Rwanda, a social enterprise committed to eradicating water scarcity by providing appropriate technologies for durable access to water.
Established in 2014, the enterprise has provided clean water access to over 132,000 individuals, schools, business and farms in Rwanda and across the borders in DRC, Burundi and Uganda.
Kwazera said the money will help them grow smartly, noting access to financing has been their biggest challenge.
"While President Kagame is a big encouragement to young people to venture into entrepreneurship, commercial banks are not willing to give loans to them. The prize is a win for my 63 employees," she said. Kwazera thanked Jack Ma for providing a platform for African entrepreneurs to grow their business but also giving them his name to build their credibility. The other seven finalists each went home with $65,000, which they said they will use to scale up their businesses.