Category Archives: scholarships

Idea Exchange: Antler, Forbes, Museums, ODM.

New, and ongoing, opportunities to apply for.

  • As part of their one-year anniversary celebrations, Absa Kenya has invited people to write in on “Wall of possibilities” of community-uplifting things that they would like to Bank to fund. Each idea may get up to Shs 2.5 million and the deadline is 5 March.
  • Antler Global is seeking new startup companies to support with funding and mentoring. The Nairobi deadline is in April, and here’s a glimpse of the 2020 cohort at Antler.
  • Nominate the Woman Entrepreneur You Admire Most to the COMESA 50 Million African Women Speak Platform.
  • DFC, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation is offering financing of between $3 million and $50 million to African companies in support of the continent’s COVID-19 recovery – via Asoko. 
  • The Forbes Africa 30 Under 30 Class of 2021 in categories for creatives, sports, and business and technology.  Deadline is March 31.  
  • Apply for the 2021 Global Teacher Prize ($1 million) and the new sister award, the Chegg.org Global Student Prize ($50,000). Deadline is 30 April.
  • The Hack the Normal hackathon takes place between 5 – 7 March 2021, invites participants to develop new products, services and business models with commercialization potential in these businesses and create solutions for financial challenges, sustainable living and healthy living.
  • The new Kikao64 co-working hub at Eldoret has 50% discount for non-profits, athletes and startup businesses, while others who sign on through the end of April 2021, get discounts of 25%.
  • The Konza innovation challenge offers $5,000 of funding for startups to pilot their innovations at the Konza Technopolis. Deadline is March 19. 
  • edit The Communication Authority of Kenya 2021 Kuza Awards rewards excellence in broadcasting. Regulatory awards are for compliance, local content, children & broadcasting, regional broadcaster, upcoming broadcaster and copyrights. Also, People Choice awards for favorite radio station, TV station, pay TV, news Radio station and TV station. This year has a theme for “Preserving our Heritage through Broadcasting (Kenya a Heritage of Splendour)”, and there is a Patriotic Award category with awards for Uzalendo Award (airing announcements on Covid-19) and Mzalendo Mkuu Award (educational content). SMS Kuza to 15601 to vote for free.
  • Mask Art awards are open to schools and young people under 25 in categories of the school of the future, young entrepreneur and environmental activist. Deadline is April 1.
  • The East Africa Maritime Awards (EAMA) recognize and award notable users of the Port of Mombasa. Organized by the Kenya Ports Authority, it is open to shipping, ports, services, engineering, and leisure marine industries with operations in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  The deadline has been extended to March 31.
  • edit From the MasterCard Foundation comes the Baobab’s Got Talent challenge, an exciting storytelling opportunity for young creatives (animation, graphic design, video production) in Africa. Deadline is March 15.
  • From MIT Solve, the 2021 Global Challenge and Solve’s first US Challenge on Antiracist Technology are now open. Anyone anywhere can submit a solution to become part of the 2021 Solver class and access more than $1.5 million in funding.
  • The National Museums of Kenya is seeking historical memorabilia on Kenya, from the year 1800. The items, including photos, film, memorabilia, weapons, musical instruments, farm tools, art, newspaper cuttings, passbooks, etc. can be donated or shared on a long-term loan basis. The deadline is 19 March.
  • For the presidential candidate at ODM, the party is seeking a committed, passionate disciplined and dependable party member who can mount a successful campaign. The entry fee is Kshs 1 million and with a reduced amount of Shs 500,000 for women, youth or persons with disabilities. Deadline is 31 March. 
  • Post Office boxes are available across Kenya. Pick one up by March 31 and get a 30% discount.
  • edit SEED, the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies, partners with entrepreneurs (CEO’s / founders) in Africa and South Africa emerging markets to build thriving enterprises that transform lives. Applications deadline is April 15.
  • edit The Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB) and Asoko Insight have launched a Renewable Energy DealRoom to accelerate the financing of renewable energy projects in the region served by TDB.
  • The Thunderbird School of Global Management is offering a unique scholarship for Africans to attend the online Masters of Applied Leadership & Management with a specialization in Public and Global Affairs starting on March 8, 2021. African students will pay a special tuition of $12,000, compared to $33,000 for other students, representing a scholarship of $21,000.
  • The Tony Elumelu Foundation has the seventh round of its entrepreneurship program in which, with partners, they are seeking to boost 1,0000 businesses and also assist others to recover from Covid-19. This year, 1,000 businesses will receive $5,000 in seed capital, business training, mentorship, and global networking opportunities.  Apply before March 31. 
  • edit The Visa Everywhere Initiative targets fintechs to join a global innovation program. Apply by May 7.
  • edit Nominations for the Africa Food Prize 2021 are ongoing, a $100,000 celebration of African agriculture achievers.

Large Bank Engagement Programs: Nigeria and Kenya

How do large banks engage with the public? Some have programs that go beyond the usual corporate social responsibility – and which go out to address unique national challenges or provide opportunities to large segments of the population who may also be customers of the bank

Kenya scholarships and training.

In Kenya, large banks have some education programs, offering scholarships and support to gifted primary and high school students in different counties. The largest of these has been Equity Bank, which has its “Wings to Fly” leadership program. In nine years, Wings to Fly has given over 15,000 scholarships to needy or financial challenged pupils, 8,000 of who attained the university entrance grade after secondary school.

There are also other entrepreneurship forums, training programs and business clubs.

KCB has a KCB2Jiajiri, a Kshs 50 billion program started in 2016 that aims to benefit 500,000 entrepreneurs in 5 years, thereby creating at least 2.5 million direct and indirect jobs. 

Barclays

Barclays Bank of Kenya launched Ready to Work, a free online training program to help college students and recent graduates get “job-ready” for a world of work. The bank also has a business club founded in 2003 that has supported over 9,000 companies and whose entrepreneur members have traveled to network and trade in over ten countries.

Nigerian bank do mega events:

Access Bank: In December, Access Bank had a huge year-end musical event.

The Bank also hosted a “Born In Africa Fest,” a musical event that was attended by over 25,000 guests.

Ecobank: The bank has a recurring fintech challenge to find financial technology companies with solutions and models that can scale across Africa.

GT Bank

GT Bank stages an annual fashion event called the GTBank Fashion Weekend that brings together fashion and business leaders from around the world to create the biggest fashion experience in Africa.

They also aim to showcase African art in different countries.

UBA: Unique among the banks is UBA, who in conjunction with their Chairman, and his Tony Elumelu Foundation have just launched the fifth year of a $100 million entrepreneurship challenge a philanthropic program that aims to find, train and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs. So far, over 4,470 entrepreneurs have benefited, and, through UBA in Kenya, over 350 local entrepreneurs in Kenya have received the seed capital of $5,000 for their businesses, training and mentoring, and many of them have been to Nigeria to attend an annual congress of entrepreneurs.

The number of applicants has been increasing each year. Last year there were over 150,000 applicants, and this year applications are all being done via TEFConnect, which is billed as the largest digital networking platform for African entrepreneurs.

The TEF Entrepreneurship Program is open to citizens and legal residents of all African countries, who run for-profit businesses based in Africa that are no older than three years. The deadline for applications submission is March 1, 2019.

Zenith Bank

Zenith Bank held “Style by Zenith,” a flagship Lifestyle, beauty, fashion, accessories and entertainment fair, in conjunction with Fashion One, in the last weekend of December 2018.

Rewiring Education

This week, the M-Pesa Foundation Academy and Nairobi International School hosted author John Couch, who was first Vice President of Apple Inc., for a talk session on “rewiring education.” The chief guest was Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for ICT, Joe Mucheru. 

Rewiring Education speakers.

Excerpts from the rewiring education Q&A: 

  • Kids come into employment fully trained in things that are no longer relevant. They then have to unlearn that, and we are working with universities to modernize the curriculum.
  • Schools have to hire teachers who are registered with the Teachers Service Commission. But those who are there only have B.Ed (Bachelor of Education degrees), and lack skills to stand in front of students who are far ahead of them in technical knowledge.
  • The Kenya government has developed a brilliant curriculum, that will start next year, but teachers have not been trained to deliver this. International schools take three years to retrain a teacher.
  • The median age in Kenya is 19 years, and half the civil service is made up of teachers.
  • The most important skill to have in life is (to embrace) continuous learning.
  • Schools can currently evaluate student memorization, but not their creativity and innovation abilities.
  • “When I was studying at Berkeley, California in the 1970’s, people thought the social revolution was taking place in the streets, but I knew it was taking place inside computers.”
  • Safaricom set out to provide connectivity to all schools in Kenya and the government was to provide the devices.
  • “The way we are teaching kids is a disservice and I am in the process of suing the UK government for wasting thirteen years of my life!”
  • The US also treats teachers as a union problem, not a professional occupation. Teachers are underpaid and under-trained.

CMA Kenya launches University Financial Literacy Competition

The Capital Markets Authority of Kenya formally launched the 2018 Universities Challenge at KICC in Nairobi on September 25, which aims to equip young people with investment skills and nurture a culture of financial literacy and investing and saving for the future through participation in capital markets.

The 2018 edition of the Universities Challenge, which runs from September 25 to December 31, will feature 6,015 participating students from 37 local universities. They will go through five stages of elimination through testing their financial literacy and knowledge, starting with an online exam, followed by a stage dubbed a “scavenger hunt”, then they will make presentations at universities followed by presentations to CMA staff. There will then be a grand finale event in Nairobi where twelve top students will get to pitch to investment stakeholders, CMA staff and representatives of all universities in the challenge.

Speaking at the launch, CMA CEO Paul Muthaura, said that the average age of entrants was 23 years and that this was as a result of them targeting ongoing students and make them young investors because of the long-term nature of capital markets investments. Also that the use of technology was part of the CMA’s engagement process of expanding financial literacy as well as to transform the visibility of the authority through social media. He added that the CMA was in the middle of implementing a ten-year master plan and had won several awards for being among the most innovative market regulators in Africa.

The winner of the 2018 inter-university competition will get a grand prize of a Kshs 150,000 (~$1,500) portfolio of listed securities of their choice and the university where the student comes from will get investment textbooks worth Kshs 75,000 for its library. Three other winners will get fully paid 3-day educational trips to observe a securities exchange and capital markets regulator in Africa.

Participate in the CMA University Challenge 2018

What can shares worth Kshs. 150,000 do for your life? How about a trip to a foreign country?  How about rewarding your university with books worth Kshs.75, 000? And what about being a guru in investing in the capital markets?

This is what is at stake for the winner of the Capital Markets Authority’s University Challenge 2018. The Challenge is open for undergraduate university students in universities that have confirmed participation. Register for this Challenge from 8th August 2018 to 22nd August 2018. Check the CMA website and social media pages for further details on the University Challenge registration process.