Story, Louvier Kindo Tombe
The finals of the “Blue Tech Challenge” took place Wednesday October 2, 2024 in Yaounde. The event was chaired by the General Manager of CAMTEL, Judith Yah Sunday Epse Achidi.
“We are here to honour innovation, creativity and entrepreneurial skills of Cameroonian youths,” says Judith Yah.
The idea behind the “Blue Tech Challenge” was to highlight opportunities in Cameroon’s digital ecosystem. The General Manager at the opening ceremony of the finals said “Blue Tech Challenge is much more than a competition; it is a show-case for digital excellence made in Cameroon”.
“It is through such initiatives that we will continue to push our nation towards digital excellence in the world,” Judith Yah said.
Through this award, CAMTEL reaffirms its commitment towards the youthful population in Cameroon; especially those specialized in the field of technology. The organization of the awards falls in line with celebrations marking CAMTEL’s 25 years of existence launched last year.
About the challenge
The project was launched on May 21, 2024 through a release inviting upcoming digital entrepreneurs to compete in 4 major categories.
The ‘Blue Star award’ designed to celebrate best digital tech startups in Cameroon, the ‘Blue Academic Innovation award’ designed for students in universities and higher institutes of learning, the ‘Blue Tech Women award’ which is a special prize for best women-led startups, and the ‘Handi Blue award’ for persons with disabilities.
In total, some 289 projects were retained for the competition and 30 qualified for the finals in all the different categories. According to the Christian sesame, promoter of Camer Startup Hub which managed the competition, all the selected projects reflected the spirit of inclusion.
“All the projects are unique with each having potentials to transform our society,” Christian sesame said at the event.
“We organized two digital boot camps to batter drill the candidates and CAMTEL provided its technical expertise to the exercise.”
The winners
The different candidates had to present their projects in front of a final jury made up of experts from government ministries and institutions in Cameroon. The selection process according to the president of the jury, Francis Ottou, Technical Adviser No. 1 at CAMTEL was free, fair, and transparent. “All the candidates were given equal chances.”
At the end of the process, the winners in the different categories were presented to the public.
One of the winning projects was “LINA”, a mobile application that help in the mobility of virtually impaired persons. According to its promoter, HESSACK Rayan, the application is an eye glasses with a camera on it that captures images which it processed and transmit the information to the user in audio form.
“It takes the images and can inform the user on the type of image and the distance it is from him or her,” says Rayan during the presentation.
The special prize for women-led projects ‘Blue Tech Women’ was won by MEGAPTECH DJAMBOU Grace, with her project known as “SolarSync”.
The ‘Blue Star award’ designed to celebrate best digital tech startups in Cameroon was won by AFOPEZI Anua-gueleh Moses with the project “AgricFresh”.
The ‘Blue Academic Innovation award’ designed for students in universities and higher institutes of learning went to NKWAMBI Treasure Bah with his “E-FARM project. He is student from IUT Ngaoundere.
Millions of FCFA was shared among the winners to enable them carry out further research and set up their startups.
