Winners of the 2018 RUFORUM Young African Entrepreneurs Competition Announced

Kampala 06 October, 2018 The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) is pleased to announce the 23 winners of the 2018 RUFORUM Young African Entrepreneurs Competition.  The competition attracted a total of 1,332 applicants from 42 African and 4 non-African countries. The following process was undertaken to identify the top 23 winners for the 2018 cohort:

1. All 1,332 applications were screened for compliance to the set guidelines.
2. All 1,332 applications were evaluated by 3 experts in the first phase leading to 3,996 reviews undertaken.
3. Top 233 (17.5%) of all the applicants were selected for second level of evaluation by business leaders, leading to 699 reviews.
4. A shortlist of 23 (9.9%) applicants were selected as the final winners of the 2018 RUYEC cohort.
5. A decision to select 23 instead of 20 as earlier communicated in the call was guided by the fact that there was a tie among four applicants. The overall selection cut-off mark was 79 percent.

Final Winners of the 2018 RUFORUM Young African Entrepreneurs Competition

No	Name	Gender	Country	Thematic Area
1	Japhet Sekenya	Male	Tanzania	Agribusiness
2	Udekwe Chinedu Martins	Male	Nigeria	Green Economy
3	Joseph Manzvera	Male	Zimbabwe	ICTs
4	Jean Anthony Onyait	Male	Uganda	ICTs
5	Ashiraf Nsibambi Kyabainze	Male	Uganda	Agribusiness
6	Emanuel Ng’ambwa Kungu	Male	Tanzania	Agribusiness
7	Mark Matovu Ssebijwenge	Male	Uganda	Agribusiness
8	Melissa Bime	Female	Cameroon	Health
9	Roy Mwangi Ombatti	Male	Kenya	Engineering
10	Akwasi Armah Tagoe	Male	Ghana	Agribusiness
11	Towenan A. Theodore Ahimakin	Male	Benin	Transport
12	Fred David	Male	Kenya	Green Economy
13	Murtala Muhammad	Male	Ghana	Green Economy
14	Paul Matovu	Male	Uganda	Agribusiness
15	Helen Opeyemi Balogun	Female	Nigeria	Agribusiness
16	Clement Kandodo	Male	Malawi	Green Economy
17	Elvis K. Amoua	Male	Benin	Agribusiness
18	Jacob Maina	Male	Kenya	Health
19	Lahbib Latrach	Male	Morocco	Engineering
20	Nabuuma Shamim Kaliisa	Female	Uganda	Health
21	Davies Nyaigero Ateka	Male	Kenya	Agribusiness
22	Sebarinda Cyusa Patrick	Male	Rwanda	Agribusiness
23	Sidje Tamo Armelle	Female	Cameroon	Agribusiness

This year’s competition builds on the inaugural one, which was organised in 2016 and attracted 756 applications from 38 countries. Ten (10) most competitive youth enterprises were awarded prizes during the Fifth Africa Higher Education Week and RUFORUM Biennial Conference held in October 2016 in Cape Town, South Africa.

The 23 winners selected this year, are invited to the Sixth African Higher Education Week and RUFORUM Biennial Conference from 22 to 26 October, 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya, and will receive their awards on 26^th October, 2018.

RUFORUM thanks all the applicants who responded to the 2018 RUFORUM Young African Entrepreneurs Competition call, and extends appreciation to all reviewers that were able to undertaken a total of 4,695 reviews in the last one and half months.

Download the complete release here Finalists Young Innovators 2018_