Anza Village, a Kenyan firm that supports innovation organisations, is the winner of this year’s €5,000 Garage48’s ISO Bootcamp Kenya.
The company was named the winner in a fiercely contested competition that attracted a number of innovation support organisations in Machakos County.
They included Startinev, Circular Innovation hub, Somo Africa, Nakuru box, Fie consult, Wise hub, MAMA Ventures and AfriFORTIFIED
Others are Fablab Winam, Swahilipot, Made Ke, Eldohub, HiiL Innovation EA, House of Genius Kenya, Holby Training Solutions and AK Advisory.
“We just won €5,000 at the ISO bootcamp Kenya. Our idea was to build a one stop platform that provides tools, resources and professional services to host players within the ecosystem,”
Shirley Kandabu, Team Anza Village, said.
It took the team less than 48 hours to ideate, build, and refine the product before the judges.
“I believe we won because our product covered the entire ecosystem. It was really about a collaborative effort to support the entire ecosystem in Kenya and also our platform goes beyond just Kenya, it also moves across the sub-saharan Africa.”
“I mean, obviously it validates our efforts, it validates all the long hours that we’ve put in and it also shows us that we would be able to continuously grow, that there’s support for young innovators who continuously build.”
Anza, which has scooped a number of awards before, is made up of five individuals.
After winning, she said,
“So, we’re going to now build and refine the platform.”
The program was supported by the Estonian Centre for International Development (ESTDEV).
Apart from Kenya, Garage48 CEO Mari Hanikat says that the event has also been done in Zambia, Uganda, and Namibia.
This year’s event has attracted good-quality prototypes, she adds.
“Because Garage48 is always strongly focused on the click of a prototype, or if it is not clickable, it has to be a real thing; it cannot just be a slide or one picture.”