Orange SL Launches 5th & 13th Editions of Orange Social Venture Prize

By Abubakarr Harding

On Monday, March 13th, 2023, Orange Sierra Leone launched its fifth edition of the Orange Social Venture Prize (OSVP) and the 13^th edition in Africa and the Middle East at the company’s Headquarter Office on Hill Station in Freetown.

Danetta Young, the Secretary General of Orange SL, delivered the welcome address in which he highlighted how the OSVP aims at promoting digital inclusion, startup acceleration in technological innovation for youths across Sierra Leone and to drive gender equality and inclusion by promoting access for women.

Young emphasized that Orange SL aims to contribute to socio- economic development and to support local, social and environmental innovations. Furthermore, she pointed out how the competition also aims at encouraging entrepreneurship in Sierra Leone by giving back to society and communities in which they operate.

Kamal Omar Sheriff Abass, the Head of Public Relations & Corporate Social Responsibility at Orange SL stated that as a telecoms company, Orange is positioned to be a digital partner for startups in Africa and the Middle East.

He added that such was the reason why Orange initiated the OSVP thirteen years ago to award the best technological project with positive impact and solution to societal challenges mainly in the field of education, health, agriculture, and mobile payment for sustainable development in Africa and the Middle East.

Abass revealed that the competition is organized annually in all seventeen orange affiliated alliances. He added that the three winners from the 17 counties will get an opportunity to compete in a grand international contest where one out of the 51 contestants emerges as the winner. He added that the international winner will bag a whopping sum of €25,000.

Abass continued to explain that Orange SL launched the OSVP competition in Sierra Leone in 2019, and three years after joining the Orange family, they have successfully held four national OSVP competitions in the past four years respectively. He added that the competition was accelerated through the support of their partner, Innovation Sierra Leone, to add more meaning in the innovation axis and to increase empowerment to young startup innovators and entrepreneurs in the country.

Abass announced that Osman Yah emerged as the winner for the national contest in 2022 and won a grand prize of hundred thousand Leones, and Joseph Koroma emerged as the International grand winner for Sierra Leone out of 17 Orange affiliates and won the grand prize of €25,000.

He added that in 2021 they introduced an additional prize to increase female participation and to promote projects offering technological solutions to improve the living conditions of women in this new category. Adeola Carew emerged as the winner with a 15 Million Leones grand prize to support the enhancement of her Save Space Project.

Abass intimated that officially submissions of applications is now open adding that applicants from the 17 Orange Affiliates in Africa and Middle East including Sierra Leone must apply for both the National and International competition and should submit their applications on or before the 21^st May 2023 at the website below:

Links to apply:

• National: http://osvpsl2023.innosl.com
• International: https://poesam.orange.com.

He disclosed that the competition has two stages: The National stage for which Applications will be collected from the 13^th March to 21^ST May 2023 for the National and Women’s competition saying at the end of the application phase, a jury made up of representatives of the Orange’s start-up ecosystem will meet to select the 3 national winners and the Women’s Noble winner. The winners will receive the following prizes: NLe 100,000 – National Winner and NLe 50,000 for the Women’s Winner.

With regards the international stage, he disclosed that the 3 winners from each subsidiary in the 17 Orange Affiliates in Africa and Middle East will be automatically selected for the international phase and will be evaluated by an evaluation committee made up of Group employees.

He continued that after their evaluation, they will select 10 finalists and a final jury of African tech influencers will select the top 3 winners of the OSVP International Grand Prize in October/November 2023. The winners of the international competition will receive the following prizes:  €25,000 for 1^st place, €15,000 for 2^nd place and €10,000 for 3^rd place.

According to him, as equal opportunities are a key aspect of Orange policy, the International Women’s Prize will also be awarded for the fourth consecutive year. This prize will be awarded to a woman who offers a technological solution to improve the living conditions of women (women’s independence, job creation or preservation, gender data collection, digital and financial inclusion, etc.). The winner will receive €20,000.

He encouraged young people across the country to participate in this year’s 2023 OSVP competition by submitting their innovative startup projects as well as calling on women to participate and to submit their applications.