The STARTS Prize Africa highlights and awards regional best practices in the field through the African edition of the well-known STARTS Prize. The STARTS Prize has been a major contributor to building the foundations of a community that links artists, companies, scientists, researchers, and businesses. Since 2024, this movement has been enhanced by the STARTS Prize Africa.
The STARTS Prize Africa welcomes innovative initiatives that strive towards a positive social, humanitarian, economic or political impact and promote a diverse and sustainable society. Embracing the powerful intersection of arts and technology, it supports endeavors that address the pressing issues of the African continent.\
The STARTS Prize Africa recognizes the projects that use creativity to drive positive change and highlights examples of collaborations between individuals, collectives, and organizations from diverse sectors. They are especially interested in projects that focus on societal challenges and promote sustainable practices on the continent.
Eligibility
The STARTS Prize Africa is offered to honour the initiatives made at the intersection of arts, science, and technology that strive towards a positive social, humanitarian, economic, environmental, or political impact and promote diverse and sustainable society.
The STARTS Prize Africa is not restricted to a particular genre or field. The competition is open to all forms of creative practices, be it music, performing and visual arts, film, animation, gaming, photography, VR and XR, design, fashion, architecture, journalism, art-science collaborations, citizen science initiatives, human-centered AI projects, social software, and many more.
The competition is open to citizens and residents of all African countries, as well as legal entities registered on the continent.
An artist group is eligible to apply if at least one member is an African citizen or resident and he/she/they are the ones to make a submission.
The competition is open to applications from natural persons (such as individual creatives, artists or other professionals), groups of natural persons, legal entities (such as startups, associations, research and higher education institutions, public bodies, NGOs, companies, and other legally established organizations), and groups of legal entities (such as research consortia).
Community initiatives may be submitted only by an authorized representative. This may be an individual or an organization as specified above.
Every submitted project must be, at the time of its submission, either totally completed or far enough along for the jury to be able to assess its quality and the likelihood of it being successfully implemented. The same applies to collaborative arrangements—at the time they’re submitted, they must already be up-and-running and in the implementation stage. No consideration will be given to entries that are purely concepts, ideas or proposals for collaboration.
Projects should not be older than two years or have to show a significant update or further development within the last two years.
Initiatives consisting of or benefitting entities subject to EU sanctions are not eligible to apply.
Prizes
Prize Money: The STARTS Prize Africa prize money amounts to €30,000 and will be distributed among:
Grand Prize of €15,000
5 Awards of Distinction each €3,000
Award Ceremony and Symposium: The winner of the STARTS Prize Africa Grand Prize makes a commitment to accept the award in person at the Award Ceremony and to present the work at the STARTS Prize Forum. Both will take place during the Ars Electronica Festival on September 3 – 7, 2025 in Linz, Austria. Groups and institutions are requested to nominate a representative to fulfill this commitment.
Exhibition: If the submitted work is selected and honoured by the Jury, the artist is committed upon invitation to present the submitted work at the Ars Electronica Festival 2025, as well as at the consortium members’ events.
Application Process
Applicants will need to provide the following material through the online submission platform:
Audiovisual material: at least one file presenting the project:
video (3-10 minutes in length – .mp4, .mov);
image (.jpg, .tiff, .bmp, .png at maximum quality);
audio (.wav, .mp3, .aif, .mov, .ogg)
Clear, detailed descriptions of the artistic concept, credits and received support, applicant’s affinity to Africa.
Form of technical implementation (since specific prerequisites must be fulfilled for an onsite presentation (e.g. in conjunction with the Ars Electronica Festival), the project’s specifications as to hardware & software and spatial requirements are desirable).
A printable portrait photo, short bio, and contact data of the artist(s) / creator(s).
At the entrant’s option, additional material such as images, documents, and drawings (as .png or .pdf) can also be submitted.
