Nigerian tech and innovation space Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) has announced the winners of the first Diaspora Challenge, with three startups receiving US$15,000 investment and places on a nine-month CcHub acceleration programme.
Disrupt Africa reported in May CcHub called for submissions to the inaugural Diaspora Challenge, offering incubation and investment to UK-based African entrepreneurs, in an international bid to to source scalable business solutions to social challenges in Africa.
The challenge sought early stage startups across three categories: financial technology, energy, and education.
Three winners have now been selected, with each receiving US$15,000 in investment from CcHub. The three startups will also join the nine-month CcHub Acceleration Programme where they will get business advisory support, and access to a wide network of mentors with domain knowledge expertise.
In the fintech category, TruuScore was named winner for its credit reference service which uses a person-centered algorithm to enable credit scoring for the financially excluded population.
The winner in the energy category was Big Pot – a power utility startup that provides solar energy to small and medium sized residences and businesses through smart community microgrids distributed via a blockchain network.
1 Million Teachers took the winning spot in the education category – the subscription-based online learning platform aims to fix education in Africa by empowering teachers with skills and knowledge using gamified and incentives-based learning.
“Nigeria is experiencing an unprecedented growth and with this comes developmental gaps and issues. We believe that the restructuring of Nigeria is one that requires collective efforts needing all hands on deck,” said ‘Bosun Tijani, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of CcHUB.
“The Diaspora Challenge is one of the vehicles through which we want to drive innovation for a better society by tapping into the innovative wealth of Africans in the diaspora eager to proffer solutions.”
