Tag Archives: TECH CONTEST

STERLING BANK GREEN INNOVATION CHALLENGE FOR STARTUPS AND MSMES

Application Deadline: October 20, 2024, at 2pm.

LOCATION: Nigeria

Welcome to Green Innovation Challenge (GIC) 2024 – Empowering Innovation through access to funding. GIC is dedicated to providing access to funding for startups, MSMEs, SMEs, cooperatives, and social enterprises that are driving innovation and positive environmental change.

ELIGIBILITY:

It is open to applicants in agriculture, clean tech and social enterprise, and is designed to connect you with the resources you need to bring your ideas to life, scale operations, and make a lasting impact.

Whether you’re launching a groundbreaking startup, growing an established SME, or leading a cooperative or social enterprise with a mission for good, we invite you to apply for funding to fuel your journey.

FOR CLEAN TECH APPLICANTS

Applicant must be between ages 20 to 45 years.

Solutions should cut across any of the following focus areas:
Battery recycling
EV digital technology application
Conversion of ICE tricycles to EV

Solution/innovation must be in the prototype or demonstration phase.

Applicant must have a clear plan for scale and viable prototypes.

Applicant for on-lending finance must have a minimum of 30% equity.

Successful applicants of the cleantech category in the Sterling Green Innovation Challenge stand a chance to win sponsored grants and access to lending financing from the Bank, however, the selection committee has the sole responsibility of, and discretion in selecting winners, and the decisions are final. The value of these prizes is to be at the sole discretion of the organizers.

Successful applicant must use funds for the proposed solution approved by the selection committee.

Applicants who are awarded a grant shall be obliged to sign a grant /use of funds agreement with
Sterling Bank detailing how they intend to use the grant funds, including a disbursement schedule
where applicable.

The selection committee and/or organizers shall have the right to withdraw any award/grant prize
from a participant who fails or refuses to comply with the obligation in this clause.

Grant recipients and applicants accessing finance will be expected to complete a documentation
process with the bank before disbursement of funds.

FOR AGRIC APPLICANTS

Applicant must be between age 18 and 35 years.

Application must be technology driven, proving productivity and profitability across value chain, and
focus climate smart initiatives.

Solution must be able to leverage on other sources of energy to save cost.

Solution must focus on value chain linkages and solve post-harvest losses.

Applicant solution must be on a specific value-chain, crop and livestock production, processing, sales, and distribution.

The selection committee and/or organizers shall have the right to withdraw any award/grant prize from a participant who fails or refuses to comply with the obligations in this clause.

All Sterling Bank terms and conditions apply.

FOR WOMEN-LED SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

Applicant must be a female between 18 and 45 years.

Applicant innovation should align with ESG principles and must be around renewable energy, climate education, agriculture, and climate action.

The selection committee and/or organizers shall have the right to withdraw any award/grant prize from an applicant who fails or refuses to comply with the obligations attached to this grant.

The selection committee has the sole responsibility of, and discretion in selecting winners, and the decisions are final. The value of the prize is to be at the sole discretion of the organizers. Successful applicants must use funds for the proposed solution approved by the selection committee.

All Sterling Bank terms and conditions apply.

BENEFIT:

FOR CLEAN TECH APPLICANTS: Applicant can access on-lending financing up to 1 billion Naira.

Minimum financing request for on-lending is 10 million Naira.

FOR AGRIC APPLICANTS: Applicant can access a single digit facility up to 20 million Naira.

FOR WOMEN-LED SOCIAL ENTERPRISE: Applicant can access a grant up to 2 million Naira.

APPLY

AFROTECH AI HACKATHON

Application Deadline: October 1, 2024 @ 4:45am GMT+1

LOCATION: USA

The core objective of this initiative is to challenge participants to build their own applications that integrate LLM APIs of existing technologies via a virtual hackathon leading up to the AfroTech Conference.

Participants will be challenged to build or update a software application that integrates APIs from Google Gemini or OpenAI and fits into one of the following categories:

Health and Medical

Sustainability

Cybersecurity and Risk

Skills-based Workforce Development

ELIGIBILITY:

Ages 21+ only

Companies/professional organizations excluded from participation

Only specific countries/territories included

Submissions to the Hackathon must meet the following requirements:

Include a Project built with the required developer tools and meets the above Project Requirements.

Include a text description that should explain the features and functionality of your Project.

Include a demonstration video of your Project. The video portion of the Submission:

should be around three (3) minutes. Judges are not required to watch beyond three minutes 

should include footage that shows the Project functioning on the device for which it was built

must be uploaded to and made publicly visible on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook Video, or Youku, and a link to the video must be provided on the submission form on the Hackathon Website; and

must not include third party trademarks, or copyrighted music or other material unless the Entrant has permission to use such material.

Include a URL to your public code repository

Include a public URL to your app

Multiple Submissions 

An Entrant may submit more than one Submission, however, each Submission must be unique and substantially different from each of the Entrant’s other Submissions, as determined by the Sponsor and Devpost in their sole discretion.

Submission ownership

Be the original work of the Entrant, be solely owned by the Entrant, and not violate the IP rights of any other person or entity.

BENEFIT:

$15,000 in prizes

First Place:

$7,500 USD Cash Prize
Up to $5,000 USD Team Travel Reimbursement for AfroTech Conference 2024
Complimentary AfroTech Conference 2024 All-Access Ticket
AfroTech.com Editorial Feature post event
Complimentary AfroTech Insider Membership

Second Place:

$5,000 USD Cash Prize
Complimentary AfroTech Conference 2024 Executive Ticket
AfroTech.com Editorial Feature post event
Complimentary AfroTech Insider Membership

Third Place:

$2,500 USD Cash Prize
Complimentary AfroTech Conference 2024 General Admission Ticket
Complimentary AfroTech Insider Membership

APPLY