Orange-SL Launches 5th OSVP Competition
By Abdul Rahman Bah
On Monday 13th March 2023, one of Sierra Leone’s leading mobile operator, Orange-SL, officially launched its 5th edition of the Orange Social Venture Prize (OSVP), at its Hill Station offices in Freetown. This marks the 13th edition of the OSVP in its branches across the world.
Speaking at the ceremony, Kamal Omur Sheriff Abass, Head of Public Relation and Corporate Social Responsibility, whilst welcoming all to the occasion, said that as a mobile telecoms company, Orange is positioned to lead the digital space for start-ups in Africa and the middle east, adding that Orange Middle East & Africa (OMEA) initiated the OSVP some 13 years ago to reward the best technology project, with positive impact and solution to social challenges; mainly in the fields of education, Health, Agriculture, mobile payment or sustainable development in Africa and the Middle East. He furthered that the competition is organized annually in all 17 orange affiliates in OMEA, and the three winners from each of the 17 countries get an opportunity to compete in a grand international contest, where 1 out of 51 contestants emerges as the winner. The international winner will bag a whooping sum of 25 thousand Euros.
Mr. Kamal also stated that Orange-SL launched the OSVP competition in the country in 2019, three years after joining the OMEA family, furthering that they have successfully held four national OSVP competitions (2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022 respectively). He maintained that last year, they accelerated the OSVP competition through the support of their partner, Innovation Sierra Leone, in a bid to bring more meaning to the innovation axis and increase empowerment of young start-up innovators\entrepreneurs in the country, and out of a total of 128 applications, Osman Yaah of Auto Smart Irrigation and Energy emerged as the winner for the national contest 2022, and won a grand a prize of 100 million Leones, whilst Joseph Koroma emerged as the OSVP international Grand Prize Winner from Sierra Leone, out of 17 orange affiliates, bagging the grand prize of 25 thousand Euros. In 2021, they introduced an additional prize to increase female participation and to promote projects offering a technological solution to improve the living condition of women.
In this new category, he went on, Adeola Carew emerged as the winner, with a 50 million Leones grand prize to support the enhancement of her Safe Space project. He encouraged youths from across the country to participate in this year’s 2023 OSVP competition, and to submit innovative start-up projects in the field of education, health, ecommerce, and agriculture that will contribute to achieving sustainable development goals.
Adeola Carew, a student at the Law School and the winner of the women prize for the 4th Edition of the OSVP in Sierra Leone, designed a digital solution to a social problem faced by women in Sierra Leone, which she called the Safe Space Sierra Leone. This is an app for women by women. A one-stop shop that promises accessibility to quality, inclusive and sexual reproductive health services and resources, as well as access to counselling and legal resources. In her statement, she highlighted the problem women face in Sierra Leone, adding that they are largely disadvantaged by the very basis of their sex, and have been seen through the years as mostly object for the pleasure of men. She stressed that this is not speculation or based on emotionalism and sensationalism, but is grounded in facts. It can be seen in the statistics of the little girls and women who are raped every day in the country by strangers, and most times by men who are in position of trust, their fathers, brothers, Uncles and by their friends, colleagues and neighbours. She added that this fact is evident in the high maternal mortality rate and high teenage pregnancy rate, the sexually transmitted diseases, even in consensual sex, because men refuse to wear condoms during sex.
