Two Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs Announced as Winners of Google Impact Challenge with $500,000 Prize Money
Of the three winners of the debut Google Impact Challenge, two Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs have been announced as the winners in an event that was held in Lagos, Nigeria on Wednesday, November 28, 2018. The winning Tony Elumelu Alumni businesses – Help Mum and Project Enable Africa – won $250,000 each with the third winner, The Cece Yara Foundation. The 12 shortlisted finalists won $125,000 each.
Project Enable Africa is a digital inclusion project that promotes the access of persons with disabilities and their caregivers to information and communication technologies (ICTs) skills and opportunities. Help Mum uses low-cost innovations and the power of mobile technology to tackle maternal and infant mortality in underserved and remote areas in Nigeria. The finalists were chosen based on their game-changing ideas and their potential to create economic opportunity in their communities.
Also listed as one of the finalists was BudgIT Foundation, one of the past beneficiaries of the Tony Elumelu Foundation which had received $5,000 seed funding from the Foundation in 2012 through the technology hub, CCHub.
The judges at the Google Impact Challenge included John Momoh, Chairman/CEO Channels Media Group; MI Abaga, Rapper, CEO of Chocolate City Music Group; Oluseyi Oyebisi, Philanthropist and Executive Director of Nigeria Network of NGOs; Eghosa Omoigui, Managing General Partner, EchoVC Partners; TY Bello, renowned artist and photographer; Parminder Vir OBE, Chief Executive Officer, Tony Elumelu Foundation; and Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, Google Nigeria’s Country Director.
