Making A Difference Around Africa (MADAA)
WHAT IT IS
The Making A Difference Around Africa (MADAA) project is an enterprise development program designed to identify and support relevant and scalable innovative solutions, focusing on those who have developed, proven, and tested sustainable products or solutions to everyday problems using locally available African resources to grow, succeed and thrive sustainably while also promoting and encouraging reverse innovation.
The project has kicked off in Africa (piloting in Nigeria) and will support relevant and innovative home-grown innovations to succeed and grow as sustainable business ventures as well as encourage entrepreneurship amongst African youths and inspire them to embrace it as a career option rather than something to fall back on when everything else fails.
WHY IT MATTERS
Throughout Nigeria and around Africa, there are numerous talented inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs who are daily utilizing local intelligence and locally sourced raw materials to create innovative solutions to address everyday problems. Some of these innovations or interventions have great potential to empower individuals and transform communities. However, owing to the lack of resources and business development support, these otherwise extraordinary inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs hardly succeed in transforming their innovative solutions into commercially viable products.
The Making A Difference Around Africa (MADAA) project will beam the searchlight in every nook and cranny of Africa to identify and support inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs, and researchers across Africa to excel.
Objectives of MADAA
- To support relevant and innovative home-grown innovations to succeed and grow as sustainable business ventures.
- To encourage entrepreneurship amongst African youths and inspire them to embrace it as a career option rather than something to fall back on when everything else fails.
- Inspire researchers and innovators to develop new innovations that address everyday challenges while providing opportunities for improved socio-economic well-being of the populace.
- To create a pipeline of energetic, and passionate innovators and entrepreneurs who can deploy innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship to solve everyday problems and create job opportunities.
- To position Sahara Group and its affiliates, as a thought leader and an organization at the forefront of supporting and inspiring youth entrepreneurship in Africa and emerging economies.
- To encourage reverse innovation by supporting identified deserving home-grown innovations and solutions to be marketed beyond the shores of Nigeria.
Who can Apply
African innovators
who have discovered the use of locally sourced naturally available, or occurring, resources in addressing sustainability or other socio-economic issues and have existing solution prototypes to solve societal problems.
Visionaries
with tried-and-tested innovations ready for advancement into finished products.
Academic researchers, innovators, students, and members of communities
who have solutions, or tested hypotheses eager to bring their work to fruition.
Entrepreneurs
seeking opportunities for scalability and breakthrough into the market.
Value Proposition
Sahara Group Foundation’s tailored value proposition will offer beneficiaries:
- Go-to-market support.
- Legal Support (intellectual property, patenting, etc).
- Business Advisory.
- Brand Management Support.
The objective is to provide all of the above, which is worth over $100,000,000 to ensure the selected innovators, researchers, inventors, and entrepreneurs, build their ideas or solutions into successful businesses that will grow, scale, and thrive.
Selection Criteria
Underlisted are the elements to be considered before a solution is selected:
- Relevance – What problem is the solution addressing? What is the size of the population of people impacted by the problem? Does this problem have a multi-dimensional impact on people and the environment? How urgently does the problem need to be addressed and why? What will be the potential cost of not immediately addressing the problem?
- Innovation – Is the solution a novel (never seen before) and an extraordinary idea or is it an improvement on an existing solution? If it is an improvement on an existing solution, what is unique to this solution?
- Impact – How wide and deep will the impact of this solution be?
- Scalable – How scalable is the solution? Is there a ready market for it? Is it easily replicable in other climes?
- Profitability – Is the solution commercially viable and profitable?
How to Apply
TIMELINE
Activity Line-Up
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Who is eligible to enter for the MADAA program?
The focus is to identify EXTRAORDINARY individuals who have developed outstanding interventions with great potential for scale and impact. Please note that we are not focused on only the educated.
- African innovators who have discovered the use of locally sourced naturally available, or occurring, resources in addressing sustainability or other socio-economic issues and have existing solution prototypes to solve societal problems.
- Visionaries with tried-and-tested innovations ready for advancement into finished products.
- Academic researchers, innovators, students, and members of communities who have solutions, or tested hypotheses eager to bring their work to fruition.
- Entrepreneurs seeking opportunities for scalability and breakthrough into the market.
Are contestants expected to sign-in as individuals or as teams?
MADAA participants can either be Individuals or teams within communities.
Will successful MADAA participants receive grants or loans?
MADAA value proposition offers successful MADAA participants invaluable business development advisory and support worth over N100,000,000. This may include legal advisory, brand positioning advisory, access to market advisory and much more. All of which ensures that the businesses or inventions are able to scale and thrive
Must the intervention submitted be developed and registered as a business with the CAC.
The business does not necessarily need to be registered with the CAC. The focus is on the businesses that have solutions and interventions using locally sources, naturally available or occurring resources in addressing sustainable solutions.