BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE– In a bid to tackle the lack of locally developed solutions in the market, Eswatini Communication Commission (ESCCOM) has come up with a National ICT Innovation Challenge for innovators to advance their skills.
ESCCOM earlier today launched an Innovation Challenge worth E230 000 to be won by any eligible liSwati between the ages of 18- 40.
When officially launching the project, ESCCOM Chief Executive (CE) Mvilawemphi Dlamini said they were looking into eradicating youth unemployment and tackling the ecosystem.
“An innovation challenge, or an innovation competition, is a compelling way of generating innovative ideas. Participants are asked to generate ideas for creating new or improving products, processes, services or customer experience and remain engaged as the challenge progresses, through regular feedback and updates,” said Dlamini.
When breaking down the innovation challenge further, Manager of Technology Standards Lwazi Maziya said the prize money was in three stages.
“The Tech hub/Start-ups with the best three Innovative prototypes will be awarded seed funding or cash Prizes of E100 000, E75 000, and E55 000 respectively to help commercialize or put their products on the market,” he said.
In addition, he said prototypes must be commercially viable to be on the market within two years.
In addition to that Maziya mentioned that there were certain key areas of focus for every participant to look at.
“There is ICT for Agriculture, proposals in the development of applications and integrated systems in all fields addressing any agriculture-related challenges, i.e. food security, environment, supply chain, and waste management,” he said.
In addition to that he mentioned the ICT for Education, where proposals addressing any challenges in the education sector hindering e-learning uptake, especially in the COVID-19 era. “ICT Related Technologies and Applications, proposals in any ICT-related topic solving a problem of interest in the ICT sector, such as e-Commerce applications/platforms, and social applications,” he said.
