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Nescafé announces winner of first Get Started Africa competition

In March 2014, Nescafé launched a youth entrepreneurship initiative across Central and West Africa.

With its Get Started Africa truck tour, Nescafé aimed at encouraging the youth to change the status quo and unleashing their creativity. Through a truck travelling across Central and West Africa,Nescafé collected the dreams and aspirations of young people. The dreams had to fit oneof the following categories: environment, technology, culture or health.           

More than 10,000 dreams from Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal were collected and posted on the brand’s Facebook page.Consumers voted for their top five dreams by “liking” them on Facebook. Themost “liked” dreams were shortlisted and the winner and runners-up selected bya Jury composed of Nescafé teamstaff.  

Muazu Adamu, a 21 years old student from Nigeria, is the winner of the 2014 Get Started Africa thanks to his dream to light up the continent by boosting power produced from power generators. Muazu invented a power optimizer, a device that can be connected to a generator to boost power and that can be used on all electrical appliances.  “My dream is to be able to produce this product on a high scale, so people can have electricity at all times”, he said.

The idea impressed the Nescafé team because of its potential to make a huge difference in Nigeria, and on the entire continent.

Nescafé awarded him 20,000USD to help him implement his idea. Half of the prize monies will be used to develop Adamu’s business and project management skills. The Nescafé team will regularly follow up onhis progress.

In addition to Muazu, three other young people were rewarded. Binta Ba, a young woman from Kaolak, Senegal, dreams of boosting coffee production in Senegal and give more opportunities to local farmers. Natacha Dembele, from Bamako in Mali, aims at setting up open days dedicated to sexual education, a topic which remains a taboo in the country. 

Victoria Adjei, from Accra, Ghana, dreams of transforming waste into electricity in order to improve the sanitation situation. The three runners-up received a laptop, smartphone and a licenced Business-In-a -box software.

The next edition of the Get Started Tour will be kicked off in February 2015.

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