Call for Applications: Kelley African Business Case Competition

Who can apply?

The competition is for African-based entrepreneurs who created, managed, and owned ventures in Africa. In other words, African entrepreneurs must have played a key role in creating the venture, have key management roles and own significant equity.

The competition is for new idea development, with the goal of helping businesses registered for at least 3 months to access additional funding.

The competition is an initiative for new and upcoming African entrepreneurs on the African continent. Teams should respect the rights of their opponents. The Africa Business Club @Kelley (ABC @ Kelley) reserves the right to disqualify teams who act unprofessionally.

Table of Contents

How to apply

Participants will present their business ideas in the form of a business pitch, and to be eligible to participate, participants must meet the following criteria.

Guidelines:

The business pitch is limited to 7 pages maximum (12-point font) of text, excluding the cover page, title page, and exhibits.

The business pitch must follow the ABC @Kelley 2022 Business Pitch Format.

All eligibility criteria can be reviewed by ABC @Kelley on a case-by-case basis for exceptions.

The business pitch must represent the original work of the team members.

The author(s) shall retain all rights to the business pitch regarding its use prior to and following the competition.

The business pitch must not contain any fabricated information about (but is not limited to) the background, experience, or education of the management team, the stage of product development, product performance claims, or market survey results.

Only African entrepreneurs based in Africa may participate in the competition.

This must apply to at least one member of the management team, but other people may be members of the management team and participate in planning the venture.

A participant may submit only one business pitch to the competition.

Business Pitch Format:

Purpose of the business pitch: After reading the business pitch, the reader should be able to understand the business idea.

The business pitch will be evaluated based on three main factors:

1) First, the uniqueness of business idea,

2) Secondly, the clarity of the business idea, and;

3) Lastly, the viability of the business.

Instructions:

Please answer the questions below in the appendix. You have flexibility in how you answer them, but please adhere to the page guidelines.

Please give enough information to understand your business, but please do not add filler material to fill the page.

Once completed, please save it in the file name as VentureName_ABC@K_BusinessPitch.

Exhibits: you may provide exhibits (no more than 5 pages) within this document.

You will NOT be evaluated on the content of the exhibits (or lack thereof); however, they may allow to understand your pitch better.

Financial statements are not required.

One final note: if this is your first time doing someKelley Africa Business Case competition.Kelley Africa Business Case competition have tried to construct it in a way that is as painless as possible. If you need any help, feel free to contact them at: [email protected].

Guidelines for finalists:

Executive summary:

All finalists must submit a one-page executive summary. The document will be reviewed by the judges to have an idea about the business prior to the presentation, so focus on relaying key information. The format and contents of the executive summary are up to the entrepreneur.

Presentation:

The format is up to the entrepreneur. The presentation time is 10 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. Only one person from each team is allowed to present and answer questions.