AWALEBIZ Named Top Female-Led Digital Start-Up

Dakar, March 29, 2018 - AWALEBIZ was honored to receive First Place in "Linguére digital challenge," the 3rd Annual Senegalese Women's Digital Entrepreneurship contest sponsored by Sonatel.

Sonatel, provider of telecommunications services in West Africa, founded the annual competition to reward the three best Senegalese enterprises run by women using digital technologies and to promote women in the ICT field.

Recognized for innovation with its e-commerce website, AWALEBIZ's top prize includes 7,500,000 FCFA and an additional 2,500,000 in technical support, which will be used to help improve performance of its digital platform.

AWALEBIZ founder, Ms. Nafy Diagne, accepts the company's First Place Prize on March 29.

Over 100 applications and start-up candidates were evaluated by a Senegalese jury composed of the Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications, Posts, the Digital Economy; Sonatel; Kinaya Lab; and Orange Digital Venture.

The top three prizes were presented at "Let's Meet Up!", an event for digital entrepreneurs to exchange and share information contributing to the enhancement of the digital ecosystem in Senegal.

AWALEBIZ is an online marketplace for unique African products, arts and crafts. In the spirit of the game "Awale," based on the idea of spreading seeds to collect fruit, the company focuses on promoting local artists and sharing the vibrant African culture.