The three-day bootcamp will prepare the 16 participating candidates for the pitching phase of the competition which is scheduled for Thursday June 26
The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Minette Libom Li Likeng has launched the bootcamp phase of the 2025 edition of the ICT Innovation Week. The ICT Innovation Week is fronted by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications under the patronage of the President of the Republic. The 2019-launched scheme which is now in its fourth edition, is organized to among others, spot and reward innovative projects that are led by young innovators and has the capacities to digitally drive change in the national economy. The 2025 series is organized under the theme “Mobilizing artificial intelligence for an ambitious digital transformation that meets the needs of our Country, Cameroon”.
Minister Li Likeng launched the bootcamp phase of the 2025 competition in Yaounde yesterday Monday June 23. The bootcamp will run from Monday June 23 to Wednesday June 25. The phase features a total of 16 participating candidates. The 16, which is one places up from the original 15-team target, were selected from a pool of 400 applicants. The candidates applied during the preliminary phase of the exercise which ran from May 28 to June 16. The window was opened for the submission of applications by aspiring participants.
The candidates will in the course of the bootcamp, be trained on pitching skills in preparation for the final pitching exercise which is expected to take place in front of a jury of experts on Thursday June 27. Minister Li Likeng told reporters at the end of the opening ceremony of the launch that the bootcamp phase officially kick-starts what is expected to be an exercise that will drive wide-ranging change in the Cameroonian economy especially digitally. She said the candidates will be equipped with skills that notably allow them to develop their enterprises as they gained access to empowerment schemes that among others, open doors to direct funding from the government.
“We will put them in contact with some other agencies to train them so that they can become real enterprises in Cameroon to develop the digital economy. ICT Innovation Week is not the final point. It’s a strategy put in place by the government to develop a suitable environment for the development of startups” the member of government said. “The Innovation week doesn’t end at receiving money. After that, we will continue with the follow up of the enterprises. They are going to be under incubation under more organized structures, which can really help them to develop their project to enable them to reach their markets,” Minister Li Likeng added.
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The President of Scientific Commission in charge of the bootcamp, Théophile Abega-Moussa made similar declarations. He said the beyond the feat of giving the participants skills that gives them skills that open doors for empowerment nationally, the trainers will get them ready to face the competition that comes at the international levels in the digital space. “We are also going to refine their business model. They are geniuses, they innovate. But sometimes they don’t know how to market the projects. So, we will also be planning the financial forecast that will allow them to make an additional planning,” Abega-Moussa stated. “This is an opportunity for us to take this project which we have been working on for a long time, to the next level by getting funding to bring it life and progress to helping small and medium-sized enterprises in Cameroon,” one of the candidates, Ngong Oliver, said. Ngong Oliver leads Finasure. The platform, is made to equip medium-sized enterprises with the tools required to manage their finances to boost growth and sustainability.
The ICT Innovation Week rounds up on Friday June 27 with the declaration of winners for the 2025 event. The lead prize of the year will be the Special Prize of the President of the Republic which is handed to the Best ICT Project. The top innovation for the 2025 event is the introduction of the Special Prize for the Best Female Innovation in Cameroon. The ICT Innovation Week was launched in 2019 with the holding of the first edition. The second and third editions took place in 2020 and 2021.
