WomHub and the Royal Academy of Engineering announce the continuation of the Africa Innovation Fellowship (AIF).

WomHub and the Royal Academy of Engineering have announced the continuation of the Africa Innovation Fellowship (AIF), the only accelerator to focus on developing women founders of STEM (science, technology, engineering and manufacturing) businesses across Africa. The programme was designed by WomHub to support women entrepreneurs to develop their businesses and to create a pipeline for applications to the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, launched by the academy in 2014 and which aims to stimulate, celebrate and reward innovation and engineering entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa,
 
AIF 2022 will commence in November and focuses on accelerating business growth through intensive entrepreneurial support, idea and business incubation, leadership development and networking. Currently in its 4th cycle, AIF has had more than 100 women completing the programme since its inception in 2019.
 
A number of these founders have featured as finalists in the annual Africa Prize, including Charlette N’Guessan, the first woman to win the Africa Prize for developing a digital verification system that uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition to verify the identities of Africans remotely and in real time.  
 
The Academy and WomHub share a commitment to driving the development of women entrepreneurs in Africa, contributing tangibly to social and economic growth, helping to create jobs and building a sustainable society and inclusive economy that works for everyone. Additionally, WomHub is proud to include its capital partner Five35 Ventures, one of the leading seed-stage gender-lens investors across the continent, as part of the AIF partnership.
 
“It has been incredible to realise the opportunity to build and support female founders in STEM businesses across Africa. This is how we move the needle forward,” explains Naadiya Moosajee, co-founder at WomHub. “In light of the setbacks of Covid-19 to development and job creation, we are making big bets that female founders can and will get us back on track to support our continental growth and aspirations and to see a partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering grow from strength to strength.”
 
”The African Innovation Fellowship has successfully supported many entrepreneurs that have created incredible engineering solutions that positively impact their local communities. We’re delighted to continue this partnership with WomHub to provide a unique incubation programme for pioneering women across Africa,” as explained by Alice Radley, Programme Manager for the Africa Prize at the Royal Academy of Engineering.
 
 
To learn more about the programmes powered by WomHub and its partners, visit www.womhub.com, and contact the team if you’re inspired to participate in supporting economic growth and prosperity by investing in women entrepreneurs with STEM businesses across Africa and around the world.  
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Additional Information
 
About the Royal Academy of Engineering
 
The Royal Academy of Engineering is a charity that harnesses the power of engineering to build a sustainable society for all and an inclusive economy that works for everyone. In collaboration with their fellows and partners, they are growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, influencing policy and engaging the public. Together, they are working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.
 
To find out more, go to www.raeng.org.uk
 
The Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2014, is Africa’s biggest prize dedicated to developing African innovators, and assisting them to maximise their impact. It awards crucial commercialisation support to ambitious African innovators developing scalable engineering solutions to address local challenges, demonstrating the importance of engineering as an enabler of improved quality of life and economic development. 
 
To learn more about the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation awarded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, please visit africaprize.raeng.org.uk or contact [email protected].
 
 
About WomHub
 
WomHub is a boutique Pan-African ecosystem builder with a focus on the entire women in STEM value chain from attraction to ownership. In unlocking the potential across the STEM value chain, they have created verticals to support women by focussing on unblocking bottlenecks. Their strategy is to ensure a comprehensive, holistic approach and create systemic change. WomHub is the only ecosystem builder in the world providing end to end support that focuses on:

• Building strategic talent pipelines and advancing women in STEM fields from high school to university through their Foundation, WomEng (Women in Engineering), founded in 2006 with the vision to support 1 million women and girls through STEM awareness and education.
• Supporting Venture Creation, Incubation and Acceleration of female founded businesses to holistically support women and women ownership through WomHub Accelerators. The business technical support starts with in-depth business diagnostics and provides a tailor made approach to support business growth and investment readiness.
• Physical innovation, co-working and eventing space, with the first WomHub workspace built in 2020 in Johannesburg. It provides a home for female founders and the first space of its kind on the continent designed for female founders, by female founders.
• Access to capital, through Five35 Ventures (www.five35.ventures). This $30 million pan-African Venture Capital Fund provides key financing to female owned, co-founded or majority female customer base, tech-enabled businesses raising money at Seed stage.

 
To find out more, go to www.womhub.com or email [email protected]