Orange rewards youth entrepreneurs

Orange Botswana has injected a tune of P100 000 into growing youth entrepreneurs through the Orange Social Venture Prize competition with Kitso Books emerging as this year’s winner.

Going home with the first prize amount of P50 000, the owners of Kitso Books Lame Motshabi and Rudisang Morake expressed delight for winning the competition which has come as a big boost.

Morake said the P50 000 prize money will help them to grow their business, saying as a small scale business they face the scourge of lack of funds.

“Winning this year’s edition comes with lot of hope to us as young growing business. At first we couldn’t afford to have enough funds to enter the competition; hence we depended more on our monthly student allowances to keep on with the completion,” said highly inspired Morake.

He said the good side that comes up with emerging as winners of the reputable Orange entrepreneurship initiative is that it opens more doors for them to lure investors who might value them.

Kitso Books, he said, is a platform designated to promote the culture of reading amongst Batswana emphasizing that it is online platform that has since offered offline services as well.

Both Motshabi and Morake are fourth year final students at the University of Botswana (UB) seating for Bachelor of Computer Science; hence their motivation to open an online bookshop.

Orange Botswana CEO, Dr Patrick Benon, has acknowledged that the competition has grown in leaps and bounds over the years. This year marked its 9^th edition.

He said the competition rewards start-ups that utilise digital technologies to change and improve the lives of the community.

“The main objective of this competition is to unearth digital solutions that can solve existing social problems, therefore after these awards, Orange Botswana engages the winners to assist them technically to develop the winning ideas into operational businesses. We coach the winners; invest time and financial resources to bring the ideas to life,” Dr Benon emphasised.

He added that their assistance is not only limited to technical support as they also assist through marketing plus communication to boost their brand visibility.

To date, he said, Orange has spent a whooping P850 000 for both Atlega and M-Agri Shop to promote winners of the competition.  

The other winners of the Social Venture programme are Sejwalo App that took P30 000 for second place followed by More Life+ who came on position three walking home P20 000 rich. The winners will compete for an International Grand Prize at the Africom Awards event set for Cape Town, South Africa next month.