ABOUT Us

Karibu N95 is an online business accelerator that aims to support entrepreneurs addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and other health crises in Africa. Karibu N95’s vision is to create a thriving entrepreneurial community across Africa, working on innovative solutions to health sector challenges. The mission of Karibu N95 is to support high-growth small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurs establish themselves and scale up by linking them with training, mentorship, and investment.

Karibu N95 incorporates global best practices in enterprise fostering to promote a culture of entrepre-neurship, support success in small and medium enterprises, and increase access to finance for these enterprises, thereby amplifying economic growth and the health sector development in Africa to ultimately improve health outcomes. The name Karibu N95 is a combination of the word ‘Karibuni’, which means welcome in Swahili, and N-95, the respiratory protective device.

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY

Karibu N95 was established in 2020 to support African entrepreneurs working to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and other health sector challenges. The global pandemic, caused by the Severe Acute Respi-ratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus and resulting COVID-19 disease, is straining health systems worldwide. In areas with weak health infrastructure in Africa, critical gaps in access to health care exist across services and supplies. Karibu N95’s goal is to ameliorate management and containment of the COVID-19 pandemic by linking African entrepreneurs with resources and training to improve and scale up their businesses.

Karibu N95 is an initiative of the Iftiin Foundation – a 501C3 that incubates and accelerates businesses for peacebuilding. Karibu N95 builds upon the expertise and experience of the Iftiin Foundation to support entrepreneurs working to improve health outcomes across Africa.

FEATURED BUSINESS: PROJECT ZAMBEZI

Project Zambezi (PZ) is is a public-private solution to the global crisis in access to medicines: their low-cost, tech-appropriate marketplace platform links healthcare facilities with medicines suppliers and local distributors, to facilitate the timely and safe delivery of essential medicines to the remotest areas.

PZ has been developing a technology-enabled, public-private distribution system to address the gap in access to medicines in sub-Saharan Africa. They are pivoting their solution in re-sponse to the COVID-19 pandemic, which calls for rapid and large-scale resource mobilisation to fill critical gaps in medical supply chains around the world. Led by Dr. Ngozi Erondu, an In-fectious Disease Epidemiologist, the PZ team is based in London, UK, and Harare, Zimbabwe.

ELIGIBILITY FOR THE KARIBU N95 ACCELERATOR

Applicants to the online accelerator program are required to submit a completed application form availa-ble online. Companies and entrepreneurs who wish to join must successfully pass the application and selection process. Our goal is to select companies that are a good fit for the program and its economic mission. Criteria for selection include social impact, business scalability, and market potential.

Eligibility for the accelerator program includes the following:

• The business must operate and be based in Africa.
• Businesses must have commenced operations any time within the previous two years, and demonstrated the potential for growth and sustainability and the need for assistance.
• Applicants lacking an operational record must demonstrate sufficient development of their concept by identifying and possessing the financial, technical, and human resources required to launch their opera
• Applicants are permitted to apply in teams of up to 4 founders (in this case, applications will be enterprises, not strictly individuals) as long as appropriate roles for each person are demonstrated.
• applications will be enterprises, not strictly individuals) as long as appropriate roles for each person are demonstrated.

Overall, the KaribuN95 accelerator seeks to yield as many promising enterprises as possible, and will encourage re-application and referral to other programs on a case by case basis.