A sports website by a Zimbabwean Journalist has succeeded to be in round 2 of the BMCE Bank African Entrepreneurship Award 2018 for African Based Entrepreneur ($1 million prize).
The website SportWayNewsNet(SWNN) at prototype stage was selected over 4900 business ideas for all regions of Africa. It was awarded one of the most needed in the region and is in the race for the $150 00 to be taken by the overall winner.
The website which covers all sports news locally and regionally was nominated by an unknown person for it to be in the awards. It however published the Dairibord Schools Rugby festival articles extensively and predictably that made it be noticed by the higher – ups in the rugby fraternity. The website at one time before the nominations was under the name Tendai Chisiri but now it is SportWayNewsNet.
Tendai Chisiri is a Journalist, Entrepreneur and Founding Editor based in Zimbabwe. He would be the first one in Zimbabwe to win in the awards which were launched in 2014 at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Marrakesh, Morocco.
An impact case study of the awards states that the first three editions of the awards have awarded 33 winners, whittled down from 78 finalists from all 54 countries on the continent.
Previous winners of the programme include South African Johann Kok, who in 2015 won $150 000 in the education category for his See box gaming console prototype. In the same year, another South African, William Mapham, also won a US$150 000 prize for the Uncharted Award after developing smartphone-based medical referral platform Vula Mobile.Kytabu founder, Kenyan Tonee Ndungu, won a US$150 000 prize in the education category. This helped him increase staff at his edtech startup from four to 23 employees.
In round 2 of the wards there are 508 most needed businesses in 49 countries. As the award journey is made up of 4 rounds, 3 rounds are of Online mentoring. In October the mentors have On- Site visits as Entrepreneurs in the top 50 are visited by the Award team.
A boot camp is held in December where finalists benefit from a 3- day boot Camp in Morocco where they pitch their ideas to the presidential jury. The jury then decides the number of winners and how the $1 million is shared.
Tendai Chisiri’s win means there will be more Zimbabwe and regional sports news on the internet.
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