Jack Ma Foundation’s first annual prize for African businesses has gone to a Nigerian entrepreneur, Temie Giwa-Tubosun. The winner gets US $250,000 cash prize from the US$1 million available from the Africa Netprenuer Prize Initiative started by Chinese investor Jack Ma. The Foundation will award a US$1m grant to 10 African entrepreneurs, every year, for the next 10 years.
Giwa-Tubosun is the mover and shaker of Lifebank, a Lagos-based blood and oxygen delivery company that connects registered blood banks to hospitals and patients in need of urgent blood infusion. Commenting on her being adjudged as the best netprenuer of the year, Giwa-Tubosun said that she would expand the footprint of the blood bank across Nigeria and gradually develop to the entire continent. Nigeria, the most populous country in the region, needs up to 1.8 million units of blood every year, but the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) collects only about 66,000 units per year, leaving a deficit of more than 1.7million pints of blood, according to the country’s health ministry. Lifebank, her initiative, will supply blood door to door to the needy people and thus would serve the sick and people who are involved in accidents.
The company has partnered with Google to avail of Google maps into its mobile application, mapping out locations connecting doctors, blood banks, hospitals, and dispatch riders.S he is also planning to deploy drones also to reach the needy people. In October, the Ethiopian government agency tasked her with exploring technology, the Lifebank team successfully did a test run of drone delivery in Ethiopia.
