- Promises €5000 Jury Reward for 7 Top Start-ups
Nigerian Tech startups with brilliant ideas viable to transform the economy and lifestyle in developing countries have been introduced to an angel investors funding from Netherlands tagged ‘Next economy Crowdfunding’.
According to the Dutch Program facilitator, Thijs van Bemmel who spoke with ICT Journalists at the Crowdfunding Boot-camp over the weekend in Lagos, said the initiative is funded by the Dutch Foreign ministry via the 1% club which aims to empower African youth in developing their talents and skills required to compete in the 21st century and create a future for themselves.
‘The Next Economy believes in the ability of African youth to dream and bring their concepts to reality thereby changing their lives, the lives of the people around them and eventually with enough push Africa at large,” he said.
The Next Economy carries out its objectives by promoting 3 schemes aimed at encouraging the holy triad of employability, entrepreneurship and business skills essential for a successful career and life as an entrepreneur. The schemes are tagged ‘Make It Work’, ‘Get It Started’ and ‘Grow Your Business’ respectively.
In the view of Director of programmes (Open living labs), Cocreation Hub Lagos, Femi Longe, Who support the objective of the Dutch in ICT sector of the country said the Crowfunding is targeted at early stage start-ups, small and medium scale enterprises and entrepreneurs in need of funds to kick-start or scale up their businesses and bring their ideas to reality.
He said, “Crowdfunding has a lot of potential as a unit of generating capital, but that it is necessary for whoever is designing to campaign to create value and ask themselves what value they are creating that will make people willing to donate to their cause in good faith.”
The scheme is currently running in three (3) African countries including Nigeria, The Next Economy collaborates with facilitators already on ground individual countries to carry out its prerogative. For example, in Nigeria The Next Economy partners with CoCreation Hub, Fate Foundation and SOS Village amongst others.
The Next Economy is currently running these programs in Lagos and Abuja, which admits participants on a quarterly basis. The Crowdfunding Bootcamp kick started in conjunction with Cocreation hub on Saturday.
The Next Economy also has a running partnership program that mentors and guides early stage start-ups operational for the next 3 years.
The Bootcamp is divided into 3 sessions each made of 5 classes. The classes to be considered are pitching & storytelling, social media strategy, the intricacies of creative campaigning, crowdfunding canvas and Business modelling.
The most successful campaign of the day and the most favourite campaign of the day win €500. After the campaign period of 30 days, a jury will reward the top 7 startups with extra funding of €5000, €3000, €2000 and €1000 for the last 4 respectively.
