Friday, March 29, 2024

Zambian female innovator lead the way at Pitch@Palace Africa 2019

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Zambia's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom His Excellency Mr. Muyeba Chikonde and Counselor Economic Mr. Mukela Mutukwa with Muzalema Mwanza at St James's Palace
Zambia’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom His Excellency Mr. Muyeba Chikonde and Counselor Economic Mr. Mukela Mutukwa with Muzalema Mwanza at St James’s Palace

Muzalema Mwanza, the founder of Safe Motherhood Alliance, a Zambia-based social enterprise that develops simple, low-cost disposable baby delivery kits has won the Pitch@Palace Africa 2019.

The announcement was made at Pitch@Palace Africa hosted by Prince Andrew, the Duke of York at St James’s Palace London on 7th March 2019. Zambia’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom His Excellency Mr. Muyeba Chikonde and members of Staff from the Mission were in attendance to support Muzalema.

The Kits developed by Safe Motherhood Alliance contains tools for midwives in Zambia delivering babies in clinics or at home births. Each kit includes basic items like a scalpel, sanitary pads, a hygienic sheet and cotton swabs, requirements needed for would be mothers.

17 entrepreneurs coming from six different African countries presented their innovations.

“It is an honour to win the Pitch@palace Africa 2019. My innovation was inspired by my own experience when giving birth to my first child. At the hospital I was told that I needed to provide my own baby delivery kit. I decided to come up with Safe Motherhood Alliance and we produce thousands of kits each month, and we sell them to pregnant women who can’t afford baby delivery kits,” she said.

High Commissioner Chikonde said “ Muzalema Mwanza has made Zambia proud. I am encouraged to see such wonderful talent from African engineers whose innovations have solutions to change their communities,” he said.

The Zambian engineer will receive eight months of bespoke business mentoring, training, and networking opportunities, to enable her turn her prototypes into a profitable business that will have economic and social impact.
And the Duke of York said “This is a very special event in our calendar, and it is a great privilege to work alongside the Royal Academy of Engineering. The Academy have a huge network across Africa and do a great amount to encourage entrepreneurial activity, without whom Pitch@Palace Africa would not be possible. Together we can help to showcase some of the great things going on in sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.

Africa Prize judge and CEO of AppsTech, Rebecca Enonchong, said: “I am incredibly proud of our Africa Prize entrepreneurs, they always impress us and help show the world what African innovation is really about.”

Since its launch in 2014, Pitch@Palace has helped 802 startup businesses to create 3,669 new jobs and generate over £890 million of new economic activity.
In June 2019, Muzalema and 2 other African prize finalists will present their pitches at an event held in Kampala, Uganda, with the winner receiving £25,000 and three runners-up each awarded £10,000.

Pitch@Palace Africa is a collaboration between the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa Innovation and Pitch@Palace, an initiative founded by the Duke of York in 2014 as a platform to amplify and accelerate the work of entrepreneurs.

Press statement was released to the media by Abigail Chaponda, the First Secretary for Press and Public Relations at Zambia High Commission in the United Kingdom

4 COMMENTS

  1. This is good unlike those who do nursing in the UK.You do a BSc in Degree in Nursing bcoz you will be wiping old people’s as$ses and putting napkins on them.Exposure to pee and poo is dangerous as the hot swampy poop gas cutting off oxygen to the body leads to a potentially lethal condition known as hypoxia. Old people’s poop turns into jenkem (heh) which result in diarrhea, gastrointestinal infection and brain damage.. Inhaling massive quantities of poo poo as it turns out into jenkem vaporizer,and all you’re inhaling is fart.And to think we were all feeling bad for the nurses (human centipede) when they were really having the high of their lives by inhaling poo gas also known as farts.I can’t huff…

    • @ read 12 times, 12 reads today. Ili shilu I wonder what you are doing in south Africa while the owner of the country are chasing you every day with machetes (Pangas) for xenophobia and wants you to leave their country because you have taking their jobs for cleaning in Hotels and all those low paying jobs in South Africa and you think you have arrived. Why don’t you come up with an Innovation like Muzalema has done than you disrespecting people who have done nothing wrong to you. I can only guess that you are unhappy person with your life. Your reaction can tell who you are. Learn to respect people who work hard to put a meal on the table.

    • These are the birthing Kits that Kapoko stole and was hoarding in his office. They were donated by a University in New York. I am glad a Zambian has taken initiative to have the kits produced in Zambia otherwise this is not her idea

  2. “If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.” – George Monbiot.

    This is not only a quote worth repeating, but one that should be written large in every economics department in the world.

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