unfpa-nailab-winners

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has announced that Fluid, Sophie Bot, Imara TV

and Deaf Elihu are the 4 products that made it into the iAccelerator programme it organised with Nailab. The programme will last for 4 months, and the entrepreneurs will be paired with experienced mentors, enrolled in business management and development training and will be granted access to KES 1 million in seed capital.

The startups were selected from the 10 finalists that were at the pitch event held at Nailab. The iAccelerator programme is an I.AM initiative that makes it easier for youths to talk about their sexuality, sex and sexual reproductive health. The initiative connects these youths with credible sources of information in safe environments free from stigmatisation.

A total of 92 applications were submitted for the program and each one had solutions and ideas that could promote youth sexual reproductive health and rights. According to the Head of Communications and Marketing at Nailab, Josephine Mwangi, “Its been an intense period for the team who have focused on mining and catalyzing innovative thinking by engaging with the best minds as we talk innovations on SRH.  This has been an interesting and quite an unexplored theme and we have learnt a lot from the young people in the process.”

The finalists will go through acceleration that will run till November where they will first go through 2 months of business training that comes with access to co-innovation partners, diverse markets, and the UNFPA network of partners. The next 2 months will see them receive seed-funding of  KES 1m based on their progress evaluation and pre-agreed business milestones.

Tola Agunbiade Author

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