With a goal to bridge digital innovation ecosystem gap across Africa and Europe, the European Business and Innovation Centre Network (EBN), on behalf of the AEDIB|NET consortium, seeks to provide support to 100 startups.
The programme will include 50 startups from Africa and 50 from Europe, participating in one of the two Virtual Partnership Programmes managed by two innovation centres — one in Africa and one in Europe, within the framework of AEDIB|NET project.
Designed to last for 6 months, the programme will focus on:
- Business development
- Startup management
- Strategic planning
- Access to finance/credit and fundraising
- Networking sessions
- Sustainability
- Internationalisation
- EU funding
- IPR, patent, certification
- Culture training
There will be specific sessions dedicated to small groups focused on Sector specific topics, trends, best practices, main stakeholders and sessions with DIHs specialised in each of the AEDIB|NET sectors.
The Virtual Partnership Programme will be designed around the following pillars:
- Capacity-building
- Peer-learning
- Problem-solving
- Learning-by-doing
- For each block, different innovation stakeholders, including more experienced entrepreneurs, second-chance entrepreneurs, and successful start-ups, will be invited to share their experiences and best practices favouring exchanges between the participating start-ups and guest innovation stakeholders established/operating in the region.
The final aim of the programmes will be to allow start-ups to engage in learning and knowledge exchange exercises. Moreover, linking and matchmaking of tech entrepreneurs, innovation partners and intermediaries (i.e., hubs, entrepreneurship supporters, networks, academia) will be fostered to raise the capacity of tech start-ups and to support the linkages between the Digital Innovation Ecosystems in Europe and Africa.
The 100 selected participants for this programme will have the possibility of participating in the AEDIB|NET bootcamps.
Eligibility
The startups should be legally established in accordance with their country’s current legislation and have the capacity to prove it, if necessary. They also must be related to one of the groups of specialisation of the project or in the process of developing a product or service applicable to any of these sectors:
- Climate Smart Agriculture
- Smart Cities
- Digital Trade
- Clean Tech
European Startups
All startups based in EU countries will be eligible to apply.
African Startups
African startups have to be based in some of the countries where some of the DIHs already selected in the project are located:
- Cameroon
- Côte D’Ivoire
- Egypt
- Kenya
- Morocco
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- South Africa
- Tanzania
- Tunisia
- Uganda
Language
All the contents both, both in the Partnership Programme and in the Bootcamps, will be in English.
How to apply
To participate in the AEDIB|NET Partnership Programme, apply before the deadline on Sunday, January 29, 2023.
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