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Cavendish University Uganda Students Qualify for 2021 Youth IDEAthon Seed Investment



With mentorship, incubation support, and hundreds of millions worth of seed investment, the Youth IDEAthon was organized to inspire, skill, mentor, and accelerate ideas from youth in all parts of Uganda.

The Youth Ideathon was implemented for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and designed to nurture creativity at an early stage and also start-up ideas that could eventually feed into the pipeline of the Youth 4Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship Facility (Y4BF) and form the next generation of transformative, innovative and inclusive micro, small and medium enterprises.

Three Cavendish University Uganda former students made it to the finals namely; Dickson Kasozi who was among the top 100 winners and Natasha Katondwaki and Derrick Seguya who were among the top 1,000 finalists from a pool of 4,819 ideas.

Sectors of focus for the business idea categories included; Agriculture, Tourism, Manufacturing, Renewable Energy, Urban Development/Smart Cities, Information Technology (IT), Creative Arts Industry, Mining, and Health Care.

Ideas were assessed following the set criteria as outlined below;

  • Originality and innovativeness of the idea
  • Potential Impact on the economy
  • Impact of the idea on the country’s response to COVID 19
  • Scalability of the idea
  • Commercial Viability & Feasibility
  • Business Model and execution strategy
  • Bonus Points were also awarded for the idea’s ability for multi-sectoral collaboration; impact on the environment and solution to Youth & Women socio-economic challenges.

The Youth IDEAthon was a nationwide event that was well-publicized in all regions of Uganda.

Grants & Accelerator Bootcamp

The top 100 ideas will share grants of almost $600,000 and will go through an intense one-week residential “Accelerator” Bootcamp to help fine-tune their ideas, receive support in the development of working prototypes where applicable, and ensure that after winning the grants, startups are ready to hit the market running.

 The programme will form the basis of “The IDEAthon” a TV show capturing these budding entrepreneurs’ journey, with the overall national winner taking home Shs 100,000,000 on a live TV finale.

While not all the ideas were investment-ready, the judges observed that 1,000 of these ideas have the potential and should be supported. Therefore, the UNDP Uganda will be supporting NASE Africa to incubate all the top 1,000 ideas.

Related Links

Youth IDEAthon Winners Announcement

Youth IDEATHON 2021



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