The Africa Basque Challenge (ABC) is an entrepreneurship experience that brings together young people from all over the world to co-create effective community solutions to address challenges affecting their communities. The challenge was co-created by Mondragon Team Academy, Zuhura Innovations Africa, Anesvad, and Diversity 4 Equality.
The challenge aims to empower young multi-cultural entrepreneurs with business ideas to work together and be ‘out of the box’ co-creators. These young people are also motivated to ensure that they create a community of change-makers with a global mindset and local commitment. ABC embraces diversity as well as strives to inspire sustainable solutions to socio-economic challenges.
Participants at the JJ McCarhey Center 2021
As Zuhura Innovations Africa, we are a collaborative partner. As a collaborative partner, we organize ways how to select the participants through hackathons and bring them together to form multi-cultural groups. As the participants embark on the challenge, they are guided by our well-trained coaches who have vast knowledge and experience in training and social impact. The participants are accompanied to the various countries the challenge is held in the course of the challenge to help them in refining their social ideas
Nairobi, Kenya 2021 at JJ McCarthey Center.
The 3rd Edition of the Africa Basque 2021-201 was held in Kenya and the Basque Country. with the theme “ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE“, which brought together multicultural teams to co-create innovative solutions in the healthcare system. The boot camp drew 38 participants aged 18 to 35 years from Kenya, Senegal, and Spain’s Basque Country.
The first leg of the bootcamp began in Nairobi, Kenya on 29th October 2021, where the participants were officially welcomed to the program. Over the course of 8 days, the participants formed multicultural teams to create new solutions to remove barriers to healthcare access, allowing citizens to obtain the products and services they want and require. This was achieved through hospital visits in the Nairobi Metropolitan area, discussions with various professionals in the medical field i.e nurses, doctors and clinical officers and engagements with people in various communities based in the Nairobi Area. This enabled the participants to understand the scope of their research and guided them on how to come up with sustainable solutions.
The program’s purpose was to:
- Find new young change-makers who will collaborate to make a good effect in their communities.
- Co-create social projects to address health-related societal challenges in Kenya, Senegal, and the Basque Country.
- To bring together intercultural groups to work and develop solutions that fulfil the needs of all communities.
In attendance at the opening ceremony were Mr Leonard Cosmas, Kenya Representative, World Health Organization, Mr Ignacio Garcia for Spanish Embassy in Kenya, Mr Elhadji Guiye for the Senegal Embassy in Kenya, Mr Jean Lokenga for UNICEF Kenya, and Mr Abdourahmane BA, the First Secretary, Senegal Embassy.
Following the completion of the Nairobi boot camp on 5th November, the participants collaborated on their projects remotely for three months. This included weekly sessions with their coaches, who guided them through all of the processes leading up to the bootcamp in Spain. During this period, the participants were expected to come up with prototypes for their solutions to elaborate on how their solutions work.
On February 5, 2022, the participants, accompanied by coaches left for the Basque Country, where they joined participants from the Basque Country and Senegal. While in the Basque Country, the participants visited the Mondragon Team Academy, Bilbao for the opening ceremony. Together with their coaches, they refined their ideas, they worked on their value proposition and business model which was a curial part of their project
Participants at ESTIA, France for training on pitching and public speaking in February 2022
The participants visited ESTIA – Institute of Technology based in France where they had a session with Thomas Perron on public speaking and pitching. This session was essential as it help them prepare for the final event where they would be presenting their final projects.
At the final pitching event held at BBK Kuna, three teams were chosen to receive seed financing for their creative concepts to be carried forward as social entrepreneurs. In addition to the initial financing, the successful participants received 3 months of mentorship and coaching from Bridges for Billions.