Applications for Challenge of Invention to Innovation competition now open

The Next Einstein Forum (NEF), an initiative of the African Institute for Mathematical Science in partnership with Robert Bosch Stiftung, has launched applications to it its Challenge of Invention to Innovation competition (Ci2i).

The announcement was made yesterday. The competition aims to reward research-based innovation in science, tech, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as well as draw attention to the impact of African researchers and entrepreneurs.

The competition is open to African scientists, innovators and startups. Teams led by non-Africans will also be considered if at least one of the co-founders or executives is African.

The Challenge of Invention to Innovation competition aims to reward research based innovation in Africa

The competition is split into three categories, namely climate smart innovations (which includes energy, agriculture and the circular economy), deep-tech innovations (including machine learning and artificial intelligence, fintech and other data driven innovations) and, personalised health.

In all 15 applicants will be shortlisted to pitch at the NEF Global Gathering which is set to take place between 26 and 28 March in Kigali, Rwanda. Attendees at the gathering will include scientists, funding organisations, business people and government officials.

Although the monetary prizes for the Ci2i competition will only be disclosed when the top 15 applicants pitch at the conference, winners stand to benefit from NEF’s global network which can help the startups innovators scale and find partners. Successful applicants can also expect to receive media exposure.

The final winners will be selected over two rounds. The first round will entail four-minute-long presentations from the 15 finalists. At this stage pitches will be judged on various factors including applicant’s presentation, innovativeness, scalability and impact.

The second round will see the top two innovators in each category pitch for the final prize with the public getting an opportunity to vote via an app.

Think you are innovative enough? Apply here.

Featured image: Next Einstein Forum via Twitter