Ampion has opened applications for its third edition of The Ampion Venture Bus Africa which will take over 200 Ampioneers on 5 buses in 2015. Ampion is encouraging young African women entrepreneurs and ICT professionals to jump on Ampion's five 2015 venture bus tours this September through to December. Each tour is a 7-day full-immersion program for developing entrepreneurial skills and creating new ventures in a team-based competition. 50% of the participants will be female, 50% from Africa, 50% from the rest of the world. And the Tunisian tour will be women only!

During the 50th African Development Bank Annual Meeting held in Abidjan on May 25 Venture Bus announced its plans to build 40 African startups and unveiled its plans for 5 new Venture Bus routes. This programme will encompass 5 buses, 14 African countries, 200 participants, 40 new startups.

"We believe, home-grown entrepreneurship and startups tackling social needs are the best way to sustainable growth on the continent"

- Fabian Guhl, CEO of Ampion

Applications are now open for coders, business developers, designers and experts from various industries world-wide were opened on 29 May 2015 for the five Venture Bus tours in Africa. For the third year in a row, Ampion will run a pan-African startup competition joined by participants from all across the globe. On the road, entrepreneurs are supported by experienced mentors from leading tech centers in Africa and world-wide and develop information and communication technology (ICT) solutions for the African market – this has already lead to capital investment and job creation in Africa.

This year will see Venture Buses driving through 14 countries all across Africa. Each tour is a 7-day full-immersion program for developing entrepreneurial skills and creating new ventures in a team-based competition set on a bus. Venture Buses run in East, West, North and Southern Africa. The Ampion Venture Bus will also visit Morocco for the first time. Each Venture Bus tour culminates at a Grand Finale, incorporated within the continent’s most renowned tech conferences such as DEMO Africa (Nigeria), AfricaCom (South Africa) and the Transform Africa Summit (Rwanda). Along the road, the Venture Bus and its participants visit all major tech- and startup-communities within each region to hold local events, getting in touch with thousands of Africa’s most promising IT talents.

Visiting Africa’s tech markets to build new companies

In the frame of five major final events all across Africa, startups are pitched to leading companies, investors as well as the hosting countries’ ministers such as Rwandan Minister of Youth and ICT Jean Philbert Nsengimana. In the first two years of the Ampion Venture Bus program, over 30 African tech startups emerged, providing ICT solutions to issues in healthcare, education, fin-tech, public transport, citizen engagement, tourism, water sanitation and much more. 40 new companies are expected to come out of the Venture Buses 2015. Last year Ampion received applications from more than 2000 applicants from 43 countries. In 2015, in its third year, the organization is expecting yet another boost of applications.

Innovations in modern banking, e-health and more – still open for partners

This year Ampion is partnering up with corporate and public partners to set a focus on selected topics on each Venture Bus. Experts will advise the entrepreneurs along the way and potentially facilitate investment by their company into the developed startups.

The focus in the regions will be:

Tunisia: female empowerment – ‘females only’ Venture Bus
East Africa: e-health, fin-tech and governance
West Africa: e-health, fin-tech and governance
Southern Africa: hardware & agriculture

While these Venture Buses will have one or more topical focus each, the development of startups in other sectors is still possible on every Venture Bus.

Halt Ebola and sterio.me – finding innovative solutions to local challenges

One of the winners of the Venture Bus programs 2014 is Halt Ebola – an app enabling rural population to receive and exchange vital healthcare information through voice messages and robo-calls in their tribal language. Another startup already active since 2013 is sterio.me. The service enables teachers to transmit and learners to receive homework and learning material via free sms, making education more easily accessible in rural areas.

About Ampion

AMPION is the leading pan-African entrepreneurship initiative to enable young Africans to start ICT companies, creating considerable social and economic impact. AMPION organizes 7-day Venture Bus programs accompanied by international mentors and followed by an extensive incubation program. Ampion is winner of the “Global Innovation Ecosystem Award 2015” as well as the “Pan African Awards for Entrepreneurship in Education 2014”. Corporate supporters of the Ampion programs are and have been, among others, Microsoft, SAP, MTN and Merck.

About the Venture Bus

The Venture Bus journeys connect entrepreneurial talent with international investors. The program brought some of Africa’s most innovative companies to life, over 30 tech-centered startups emerged from the Ampion Venture Buses thus far – among them companies such as sterio.me, MobiDawa and Halt!Ebola. The Venture Bus follows a refined program, implementing design thinking methods to support the startup development process with HPI & Stanford trained facilitators.

Apply here:

http://www.ampion.org/#!apply-2015/c2075

Selected senior mentors and investors are also welcome to join the bus, please contact applications@ampion.org to find out more.

You can find more information on Ampion at their website: www.ampion.org