Unilever has extended its annual competition, Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards that seeks to get practical innovative solutions to the world’s biggest sustainability challenges to East Africa. The competition is open to anyone aged 30 or below.
The company is looking for scalable and sustainable products, services or applications that reduce environmental impacts improve health and well-being or enhance livelihoods through changes in practices or behaviours.
The overall winner will receive the prestigious HRH The Prince of Wales Young Sustainability Entrepreneur Prize. Seven winners will get €200,000 (Sh24 million) financial support and free mentorship.
The seven finalists take part in an online development programme and then participate in a two-day accelerator workshop at Cambridge University, UK, where they will receive expert help and professional guidance to help them develop their ideas.
Last year over 500 young entrepreneurs from more than 90 countries entered the awards. Winning projects ranged from a mobile data and messaging system that tracks water supply and optimises use in India, to low-cost chicken-feed made from waste mango seed in Nigeria; and from water-less toilets in rural Peru to a work-for-education swap scheme in Nepal, whereby the children of low-income farm workers receive education in return for their parents donating their labour to a farming collective.
Last year’s overall winner – who got €50,000 and the HRH The Prince of Wales Prize – was Gamal Albinsaid, a 24-year-old Indonesian, who addressed two sustainability challenges with one idea: converting the value in household waste into health insurance for low income families.
Interested parties can apply online by visiting changemakers.com/sustliving2014
Submission of entries closes at midnight (BST) August 1st, 2014 and finalists will be announced in October 2014. The Cambridge accelerator workshop and final judging takes place in January 2015.