From December 14 to December 19 the final Ampion Venture Bus will embark on a journey to create innovative ICT start-ups when travelling throughout Tunisia. Tunisia, has become famous for its lively scene of bloggers and engaged citizens. Fittingly, the Ampion Venture Bus in Tunisia will partly set a focus on ICT solutions improving democratic participation.
The Venture Bus will start and land in Tunis, while making stops in Kairouan, Tozeur, Gabes and Sfax in between to connect the regional start-up ecosystems and visit several local innovation HUBs for workshops, mentoring and pitches.
A special bonding experience and possible source of creativity awaits the group of Venture Bus entrepreneurs just outside of Tozeur, when the teams will set up camp in the Sahara desert for one night. The opening event is to be held at Tunis’ most popular co-working space Cogite. The winners of the Venture Bus Tunisia 2014 will be honoured at the Grand Finale, which is scheduled to take place in the premises of renowned private school ESPRIT (École Supérieure Privée d’Ingénierie et de Technologie) on December 19.
For the Tunisian Venture Bus, Ampion encourages the participants to work on solutions to use the power of mobile technology and ICT to improve the legitimacy of public governance and to strengthen public participation in policy-making processes on the African continent. Among the Venture Bus Tunisia participants will be experienced governance experts. Additionally, the workshops along the road will be joined by politicians as well as members of regional citizens’ initiatives.
24 start-ups have been created on three Ampion Venture Buses so far. Ampioneers came up with innovative ventures such as Halt Ebola – a fast and efficient information network tailored to deal with healthcare crisis – E-Maji – a smart, real-time water quality testing unit which can be used with any of the 700 000 boreholes across the continent to improve access to clear water – and JamboCar – East Africa’s very first car pooling service. 2013 success stories include saisai and sterio.me.
According to the company, the best start-ups created on the Ampion Venture Buses are rewarded with a Fellowship Programme for six months. It includes mentoring, free office spaces and funding and introduces the entrepreneurs to Ampion’s extensive network in Africa.
Start-ups created on the Ampion Venture Buses in Africa cover a broad variety of day-to-day issues in the fields of healthcare, education, transport, consumer empowerment, citizen engagement and more. International coders, designers and business experts from all across the world work together with Africa’s most talented entrepreneurs to shape the future of the African markets.
Staff Writer
