Twenty (20) winners of RUFORUM Young African Entrepreneurs Competition 2019 announced

The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) is pleased to announce the 20 winners of the 2019 RUFORUM Young African Entrepreneurs Competition (West Africa). The competition attracted applications from 421 youth (110 females and 311 males) from 12 countries in West Africa including: Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. The following three stage process was undertaken to identify the top 20 winners:

1. All 421 applications were reviewed for compliance to the call guidelines
2. A total of 373 (88.6%) applications were compliant and were each evaluated by three assessors
3. Top 60 (16.1%) applications were shortlisted for the second level of evaluation. Each application was once again assessed by a team of three expert assessors
4. Top 20 applications were selected as winners after undergoing the second level evaluation

The final list of the top 20 successful winners from six countries in West Africa are presented in the Table below.

RUFORUM believes in the transformative power of entrepreneurship in addressing youth unemployment in Africa. Empowering and involving young people in enterprise development will support youth integration into the economic growth for youth employment. The twenty (20) competitively selected business enterprises will receive an all-expense paid trip (air ticket, and hotel costs) to participate and pitch their innovations at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) at Cape Coast Ghana, 2-6 December 2019.

The call for applications focused on West Africa and was the first edition of the RUFORUM Young African Entrepreneurs Competition that is sub-regional in nature. The first competition which was organized in 2016 attracted a total of 756 applications from 38 countries. The fifteen (15) most competitive youth enterprises were awarded during the Fifth Africa Higher Education Week and RUFORUM Biennial Conference that was held in Cape Town, South Africa.  The second competition was organized in 2018, it attracted a total of 1,332 youth from 42 African countries and 23 competitive youth enterprises were awarded during the Sixth Africa Higher Education Week and RUFORUM Biennial Conference that was held in Nairobi, Kenya.

RUFORUM extends its appreciation to all applicants for responding to the RUFORUM Young African Entrepreneurs 2019 Competition (West Africa) and to the reviewers.

Top 20 winners of the RUFORUM Young African Entrepreneurs Competition 2019 (West Africa) ranked by Score

No.	Serial	Name	Gender	Nationality	Language	Average Score
1	1521	Aisha Kombeh Jatta	Female	Gambia	English	80.0
2	1623	OBOGNON  Noel	Male	Benin	French	79.3
3	1628	Thierno Souleymane AGNE	Male	Senegal	French	78.3
4	1575	Oluwatomisin Kolawole	Male	Nigeria	English	77.3
5	1595	Fatodu Taiwo Olawande	Male	Nigeria	English	77.0
6	1756	Abdou Rachidi Fancisco	Male	Benin	French	76.0
7	1439	Toyin Olowogbon	Male	Nigeria	English	75.7
8	1765	DOSSA Sonagnon Jocelyne	Female	Benin	French	75.5
9	1830	Omasan Alabi	Female	Nigeria	English	75.3
10	1555	Felix Ayite	Male	Togo	French	75.0
11	1455	Anthony Ebitimi Owei	Male	Nigeria	English	74.7
12	1819	MEDENOU Codjo Mawunou Esteban	Male	Benin	French	74.3
13	1549	Ante Joseph	Male	Nigeria	English	73.7
14	1581	Israel Terwase AYUA	Male	Nigeria	English	73.7
15	1629	Nnaedozie George Idoko	Male	Nigeria	English	73.3
16	1836	Benjamin Agyin Turkson	Male	Ghana	English	73.3
17	1694	Tunde Adeyemi	Male	Nigeria	English	73.0
18	1440	Michael Olusanya	Male	Nigeria	English	72.7
19	1796	Ugochukwu Stephen Ugwudi	Male	Nigeria	English	72.7
20	1814	ADECHIAN Akinhola	Male	Benin	French	72.7

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