WIA54 CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

WIA54 is committed to supporting 10,000 African women entrepreneurs by 2030 through training, mentoring, communication and access to finance. Their goal is to contribute to the creation of 100,000 jobs and to contribute to the generation of $10 billion in revenue for the African economy by 2030.

This year

• 540 finalists from 54 African countries will be selected to participate in the bootcamp training and personalized mentoring programme, and will become part of the WIA community!
• The best candidates at the end of the mentoring/pitch training phase will participate in the pitching phase which will give them access to investors and “seed capital” (June 2023)
• 54 laureates will have the opportunity to join an MBA programme of our partner Honoris United Universities;
• 54 laureates will also benefit from a communication highlight worth €5,000 on the WIA social networks;
• 8 Revelations will benefit from a communication promotion worth €8,000;
• The Gold Award will also receive a prize of €10,000;

The call for applications will run from February 22, 2022 to May 31, 2022.

Applicants must complete the application form, which has several sections such as:
– personal information;
–  information about the company. 

The eligibility criteria:

• Business created or led by an African woman
• First traction on the market (sales, number of users, funds raised)
• Be part of one of the 8 categories (primary business category)

The selection criteria for the projects:

• Innovative product, service or technology
• Proven business model scalability
• Strong growth potential
• Ambitious team with strong execution ability
• Market traction (revenue, number of users, funds raised)
• Potential impact in Africa

The sectors

Applicants have the opportunity to apply in the following areas :

Announcement of the finalists

The announcement of the finalists will take place in July 2022.

After the announcement of the finalists, the different finalists will be directed to the appropriate training path.

The training phase

Once pre-selected and placed in the appropriate training pathway, finalist will participate in a virtual orientation programme to learn more about the process and we will share with you the timelines and resources available for success.

Finalist will take part in our rigorous business management training and coaching sessions, which consist of a balanced mix of stand-alone online learning and webinar-style training.

Weekly multiple choice questions will track your performance.

At the end of the training phase, women entrepreneurs will again be pre-selected to participate in the mentoring phase. 

The mentoring phase

The mentoring phase will last six months and will allow the selected entrepreneurs to be accompanied by high-level mentors ready to help them combine all the learnings of the training into one coherent document: “the business plan.“

Selected entrepreneurs will receive a business and financial plan template that will help them complete their business plan and then review it with their mentor.

After the TRAINING and the PRESENTATION OF THE BUSINESS PLAN, the laureates will be able to move on to the next step: the PITCH COMPETITION

The pitch phase

This will be a unique opportunity to demonstrate your business knowledge, convince the jury of the viability of your business, and raise funds!

The application will be done in 2 steps – the WIA team will get back to the pre-selected candidates after step 1. APPLY NOW