Two Kenyans, are among the finalists announced for the Anzisha Prize. The two are among the 12 finalists in the running for the $75,000 prize money that will be awarded on 23 September 2014 in Johannesburg.
The Anzisha Prize, which is a partnership between African Leadership Academy and The MasterCard Foundation, scours the continent seeking to find entrepreneurial youth between the ages of 15 and 22, who have identified opportunities to better their communities and done so inclusively. This year’s finalists have started ventures in a diverse range of economic sectors including energy, health care, tourism and hospitality.
Now in its fourth year, the Anzisha Prize received 339 applications this year from 32 countries for Africa’s premier youth entrepreneurship award.
Here is a bio on the 2 Kenyan Finalists.
Martha Chumo, Founder of Nairobi Developer School
In the process of applying for medical school, Martha Chumo happened upon coding through a tech internship which sparked her curiosity to head straight into the tech world. Chumo was set to attend Hacker School, a U.S. based retreat for programmers, in New York to master her skills and meet fellow coders, but she couldn’t raise the airfare needed to do so. She started an Indiegogo campaign for her trip and ended up raising $5,800. That wouldn’t be the final obstacle however. In the end, because Chumo could not demonstrate to the U.S. government that she had sufficient “social ties†to Kenya to prove she was returning home after the Hacker School, she was denied a visa. Instead of giving up, Chumo remained passionate about her desire to learn and her own hacker school which she named Nairobi Dev School.
Tom Osborn, Founder of Greenchar
Greenchar is a clean energy project that produces smokeless charcoal briquettes and distributes clean cook stoves throughout Kenya.
Tom Osborn is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Greenchar. Greenchar provides ecofriendly charcoal briquettes and clean cookstoves to Kenyan households. Growing up in rural Kenya, Tom experienced firsthand the devastating effects of using charcoal and firewood to cook on traditional cookstoves. Helping his mum prepare food as a young boy, he noticed the unhealthy and uncomfortable cooking environment where they prepared food every day. Bright and talented, Tom joined Kenya’s premier high school Alliance High School where he decided to do something for his mother and the 90 percent of Kenyan households that use charcoal and firewood as their main source of household energy. He put together a team and researched how they could provide alternative forms of household energy. Fresh from high school, Tom founded Greenchar with the aim of transforming the Kenyan cooking environment. Tom is a winner of the Global Minimum Innovate Kenya, The Royal Commonwealth Society Young Persons Essay Award 2012 and is a Golden Climate Environmental Project Olympiad Silver Medalist.
You can read about the other finalists here.