LoftyInc Inks Strategic Partnership with De La Rue African Innovation Prize

LoftyInc Allied Partners Limited is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with United Kingdom based De La Rue African Innovation Prize (DLRAIP), a not-for-profit organization that organizes business plan competitions in African countries and awards prizes to ideas emerging thereof. At the signing ceremony, which took place at the University of Cambridge, UK, on November 15, Wennovation Hub Program Director, Idris Bello, represented LoftyInc Allied Partners Limited while De La Rue African Innovation Prize was represented by its Trustees; Julia Fan Li, Sarah Teacher, and Alexander Handy.

Wennovation Hub Program Director (Idris Bello) and De La Rue African Innovation Prize Trustees at the formal signing of the MOU between the two organizations to support university entrepreneurship in Nigeria.  Date: November 15, 2011.

The De La Rue African Innovation Prize was first inspired by a public policy lecture given by President Paul Kagame at the University of Cambridge in December 2008. In 2009, DLRAIP established a partnership to run the first DLRAIP Business Plan Competition at Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). DLRAIP itself started with a grant from Cambridge University Entrepreneurs (CUE) Business Plan competition and believes in the catalytic power of business competitions for both economic and social development.

This strategic partnership will see the current DLRAIP business plan competition expanding into six to seven Nigerian universities in 2012 culminating in awards of varying cash prizes and ultimately grants for the most promising ideas to get incubated at the LoftyInc operated Wennovation Hub, located in Lagos, Nigeria. The competition will be known as the De La Rue African Innovation Prize (DLRAIP) Wennovation Hunt.

Furthermore, the De La Rue African Innovation Prize driven selection process will serve as the basis for the scale-up of the ongoing Wennovation Camp program currently in its first cycle. The DLRAIP will enable expansion of WennoCamp 2.0 and subsequent versions from technology into other sectors.

According to LoftyInc’s Managing Partner, Wole Odetayo – the partnership “will see us tripling the current number of companies incubated at the Hub in 2012 alone, and thereafter creating a sustainable pipeline of innovative companies in the Wennovation eco-system”. DLRAIP’s Julia Fan Li added that the “The De La Rue African Innovation Prize is excited about expanding our program into Nigeria, and looks forward to working with the Wennovation Hub team”.

The 2012 sponsor of the African Innovation Prize globally is prominent multinational: De La Rue Identity Systems, which is a world expert in the delivery and management of systems and solutions with over 100 projects implemented in 65 countries. A substantial fundraising drive is however planned to support the DLRAIP Nigeria program. Interested corporate and individual supporters of the may contact us at: africaninnovationprize@gmail.com and ideaslab@loftyincltd.biz