Announcement of the 10 Finalist companies at the 1st Blue Ocean Awards of Senegal within the framework of the 8th international edition and Ceremony on December 19, 2022 at the D-HUB of Dakar

Announcement of the 10 finalist companies of the Blue Ocean Awards of Senegal, by the management of the Blue Ocean Awards, the General Delegation for Rapid Entrepreneurship of Women and Youth of Senegal, the Embassy of France in Senegal, HEC Paris, the Association of Grandes Ecoles and Institutes of Senegal and the professional network Munngano Connectt. The winners will be unveiled on December 19, 2022 during an exceptional ceremony at the D-HUB in Dakar, in the presence of Mr. Mamadou Ndiaye, Director of Entrepreneurship Promotion of the General Delegation for Rapid Entrepreneurship of Women and Youth. The Africa Chapter of HEC Paris, Mr. Habib Mbaye, former minister of the Republic of Senegal, will also honor us with his presence.

The Blue Ocean Awards are directly inspired by the concept of Blue Ocean Strategy, resulting from the research work of Professors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne on value-based innovation. Since 2014 on average 9 winners out of 10 at the Blue Ocean Awards are financed within 6 months thanks to its jury formed mainly by professional investors.

Among nearly a hundred applications received, the organization of the Blue Ocean Awards has selected 10 Senegalese companies as finalists of their first edition in Senegal. These 10 companies were able to follow a 2-day bootcamp dedicated to their training in preparation for their appearance before the jury of the Blue Ocean Awards in Senegal. This bootcamp - offered by the French Embassy in Senegal to the finalists - allowed them to build their Blue Ocean Matrix in teams and to practice their presentation in front of a jury of investors.

> The award ceremony will take place on December 19, 2022 at the D-HUB in Dakar and will be broadcast live on the Blue Ocean Awards channel. To be notified and follow the live broadcast: https: //youtu.be/VLQ8C5lyzV4

The jury will be held in person at the D-HUB and in video on the morning of December 19 and will also be broadcast live on the YouTube channel(https://www.youtube.com/c/BlueOceanAwards). Most of the jury members will be key players in the investment industry in Senegal and Africa: Papa Mady SIDIBE Investor of DER, Inge KERKLOH-DEVIF Senior Executive Director Entrepreneurship & Innovation of HEC Paris, Fatimata DIAW & Néné DIALLO co-founders of Munngano Connectt, Ndeye THIAW Managing Partner of Brightmorecapital, Florence RICHARDSON President of Femmes Business Angels, Leonid GONCHAROV - historical winner of the Blue Ocean Award 2016 with Anticafé - business Angel & member of COMEX 40 Medef, Adama Faye TALL Startup Studio Manager of Orange Senegal as well as the historical members of the jury and professional investors: Hélène CAMPOURCY and Stéphane ALIX. The jury will also include Sonatel Corporate Venture Capital, EIT Urban Mobility (European Institute of Innovation and Technology), Raisers, JOKKOLABS, Makesense Africa and Cayor Ventures.

This exceptional jury, international and trained to use the "BlueScore", the scoring grid exclusive to the Blue Ocean Awards to assess the ability of an offer to create a new market, will have the difficult task of choosing between the 10 finalists: ApiAfrique [eco-friendly hygiene products and support programs for the well-being of women and babies], NAWALI GROUP [Support in the acquisition of real estate in complete security in Africa], ART-PESOUNG [construction and sale of ecological toilets made of compressed earth bricks with methanization pits], ALLO-VETO [remote access to veterinary services in order to keep one's animals in perfect health 24 hours a day, 7 days a week], Archives Consulting Group [document archiving that allows you to focus on your core business and save space in your office], LOGIDOO [digital solution for parcel transport in Africa], Kayfo Games [video game studio that designs and produces African mobile games], Ovavitech [manufacture of solar-powered automatic egg incubators], Teralma [solution that facilitates and digitalizes every step of the organization of ceremonies in Africa], African Puzzle [productivity tool for the largest number of workers, i.e., the poorly literate].

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"Operational since 2018, the General Delegation for Rapid Entrepreneurship of Women and Youth has made the support of Senegalese nuggets, its raison d'être in particular through the Innovation Support Fund (ISF), which has funded 230 startups and trained 415 entrepreneurs via various tailored support programs. In the continuity of this dynamic, the DER/FJ is pleased to be able to collaborate with the initiators of the Blue Ocean Awards and thus offer new opportunities to the pool of innovative startups in Senegal.

Dr Mame Aby Seye, Minister Delegate General

General Delegation for Rapid Entrepreneurship of Women and Youth (DER/FJ)

"The French Embassy in Senegal is pleased to support this first international edition of the Blue Ocean Awards, a prestigious innovation competition initiated by INSEAD and HEC Paris. This edition is fully in line with our wish to support the development of the particularly dynamic innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem in Senegal. It is also a great opportunity to bring our respective ecosystems closer together.

Philippe Lalliot, Ambassador of France to Senegal and The Gambia

"HEC Paris has supported the Blue Ocean Awards since their inception in 2014. Every year, we are happy to see our entrepreneurs highlighted for their ability to think outside the box and create new markets. I am thinking in particular of Agorize, Yogist, Advitam, Tarmac Technologies, Bird Office, Sillages Paris. We continue to develop our HEC Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center to support them. In addition, we are delighted that the Blue Ocean Awards are taking on a strong international dimension this year, with the launch of the first edition dedicated to Senegal, which is a logical step in the school's development on the African continent."

Philippe Oster, Director of International Affairs at HEC Paris

"The promotion of entrepreneurship through our ecosystem of networking is one of the leitmotivs of MUNNGANO-CONNECTT. Having developed our business and networking network between France and Senegal, it is an honor for us to participate and contribute to the success of the first edition of the BOA in Senegal. It is a concept that has already proven its worth to startups in the French ecosystem and this opening to the international scene, especially in Senegal, only reinforces our mission to create synergies between different actors and ecosystems. BOA will contribute to this dynamic, and it is with pleasure that we congratulate this initiative."

Néné Diallo & Fatima Diaw, Co-Founders of Munngano-Connectt

"It is a great honor for the Blue Ocean Awards to connect Senegal's innovation ecosystem to our ecosystems developed in Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon since 2014 and in South Africa in 2021, before adding India in 2023. Indeed, Senegal, like South Africa, is a land of innovation with a strong societal impact that values responsible and inclusive innovation, relying on a highly educated youth with an entrepreneurial spirit. The Blue Ocean Awards in Senegal were born from the unfailing support of the French Embassy in Senegal and the meeting between the DER and HEC Paris. Just as in South Africa in 2021, the Senegalese innovation fabric seems ready to support an ambitious program like BlueCity to build the inclusive City of tomorrow.

Alban Eral, Founder of the Blue Ocean Awards and BlueCity

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Press contact

Bertrand Espitalier

Director of Communications for the Blue Ocean Awards

+336 63 12 77 44

communication@blue-awards.com

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About the Blue Ocean Awards

The Blue Ocean Awards were created in 2014 by Alban Eral, with HEC Paris and the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Recovery. The Blue Ocean Awards are the only event in the world that rewards companies that have followed a strategy known as the Blue Ocean Strategy , which aims to create a new market away from the competition.

About HEC Paris

HEC Paris is a leading French business school in Europe whose ambition is to have a positive impact on business and society. Its Center of Expertise, the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center, contributes to making HEC Paris a benchmark institution in innovation and entrepreneurship. It supports the vocation of the innovators it trains and accompanies them in the development of their project. Its mission is to support and promote innovation - to produce and mobilize knowledge and methods for action - to enable potential - both individual and economic - to be revealed, expressed and realized. To develop with ambition, efficiency and impact! http://www.hec.edu/innovation-entrepreneurship-center

About the Association of Grandes Ecoles and Institutes of Senegal (AGEIS)

 The Association of Grandes Ecoles and Institutes of Senegal (AGEIS), which brings together students from the following institutions: IST, ENSAE, ENSA, ESEA, IPSL, ISFAR, EPT, IUT and ESP born on Sunday, February 14, 2021 in the premises of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Agriculture (ENSA), is a framework of exchange which will allow to remedy the problems encountered by the Grandes Ecoles and Institutes of Senegal.

Its objectives are to make students of member institutions aware of the opportunities of entrepreneurship, to promote interdisciplinarity by recommending that project leaders form teams with diverse profiles, to support students in the formalization and incubation of their projects, and to promote the Senegalese elite that these schools and institutes contain.

About Munganno-Connectt

In order to respond to the complexity of identifying actors, and to the growing needs of business relations with the African continent, Munganno-Connectt aims to create a community of economic agents (companies, shareholders, organizations, institutions, suppliers...) from different fields of activity, which pursue a common strategic vision and thus promote collaborations, synergies and information sharing.

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