Charles Batte, 27 and David Opio, 26 are among the seven finalists of the 2014 Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards who were feted earlier this year. The annual competition seeks to get practical innovative solutions to the world’s biggest sustainability challenges. This is its second run.
Charles Batte founded Tree AdoptionUganda (TAU), which helps young entrepreneurs by providing mentoring and training funded by trees planted by the entrepreneurs themselves and sold to companies seeking to reduce their carbon footprint. David Opio on the other hand created Ensibuuko, a mobile and web application that integrates SMS and mobile money services, to handle savings and make loans to smallholder farmers in Uganda.
The Awards program, delivered by Unilever in partnership with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL),recognized young people aged 30 and under who have come up with practical, scalable initiatives designed to tackle the challenge of sustainable living.
“We created these awards for young people because they will be the guardians of sustainable development long into the future. In its second year, the awards attracted 60 percent more entries compared to the first, resulting in a very high calibre of semi-finalists and the seven truly impressive finalists. It is a strong signal that young entrepreneurs are really welcoming access to the right support to help them lead the development of entrepreneurial responses to a changing world,” said Unilever CEO Paul Polman.
The seven finalists took part in a four-week online development program, followed by a three-day accelerator workshop in Cambridge, United Kingdom to help develop their ideas.They pitched their initiatives to a panel of judges in London, including entrepreneurs, sustainability experts and senior business executives.
“This is a joyous moment for us in East Africa to have young Ugandan entrepreneurs make it to the top of such a competitive global award.” commented Marc Engel, Unilever CEO for East Africa and emerging markets. “Itis a clear sign that East Africa and Africa as a whole has a talented pool of young innovative thinkers who are ready to lead from the front in matters sustainability and to find local solutions to global challenges.”
The overall winner of the competition was 21 year old Daniel Yu, founder of Reliefwatch – simple software helping medical clinics in the developing world to digitise and manage inventory records for better patient outcomes.He received funding support of €50,000 (Ush163.5M) and the other six finalists €10,000(Ush32.7M). All finalists also participate in a twelve month mentoring program which aims to support them scale their business’ revenue and impact and hone their entrepreneurial skills.
Read more about the finalists and their entries here.
