Submisssions open for EDHE ABSA Innovation Challenge 2025 (South Africa)

This programme is designed to identify, nurture, and support the transformation of student and alumni innovations into viable, scalable ventures that address pressing societal challenges.

The EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge is designed to foster a culture of entrepreneurship, address graduate unemployment, and contribute to South Africa’s economic development. It also allows Absa Bank to play a pivotal role in shaping the country’s future of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Goals

• The goals of the EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge are:
  • To promote innovation among university students and alumni students.
  • To support the development of entrepreneurial skills among university students and alumni students.
  • To create a pipeline of innovative solutions to pressing societal issues.

EDHE Innovation Challenge

• The EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge is a dynamic, future-focused youth-entrepreneurship competition designed to uncover and support bold, original solutions that address South Africa’s and the world’s most pressing societal challenges. At the heart of the Challenge is a commitment to innovation, not just in terms of advanced technology, but in any form that brings about meaningful transformation. Whether it’s a cutting-edge digital platform, a new social system, a policy shift, or a reimagined business model, the competition seeks ideas that break new ground and have the power to reshape communities, industries, and systems.
• This Challenge embraces both tech-driven and non-tech innovations, understanding that the power of entrepreneurship lies in the creativity and problem-solving mindset of young people. Students are encouraged to think beyond conventional boundaries, offering solutions that are innovative, impactful, feasible, and scalable, regardless of the tools or platforms they use.
• Examples of potential focus areas include (but are not limited to):
  • Health & Wellness Innovation: Improving health systems, access to care, mental health support, or community wellness initiatives.
  • Education & Learning Innovation: Enhancing how people access, experience, or benefit from education, skills development, inclusive learning, and lifelong learning.
  • Environmental & Climate Innovation: Addressing climate action, biodiversity, circular economy, sustainable living, conservation, and waste reduction.
  • Financial & Economic Inclusion: Creating access to financial services, supporting informal economies, enabling entrepreneurship, and promoting local economic development.
  • Agriculture & Food Innovation: Improving food systems, smart farming, food security, agri-processing, and rural livelihoods.
  • Oceans & Water-Based Innovation: Promoting sustainability in marine and freshwater ecosystems, responsible fishing, aquaculture, and the blue economy.
  • Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH): Ensuring access to clean water, safe sanitation, hygiene awareness, and low-cost WASH innovations for communities.
  • Housing & Infrastructure Innovation: Developing affordable housing solutions, energy-efficient building models, transport systems, and resilient infrastructure.
  • Social Justice & Inclusion: Promoting gender equality, disability inclusion, youth empowerment, access to justice, and addressing social inequality.
  • Creative Economy & Cultural Innovation: Leveraging arts, design, heritage, and creative industries for economic empowerment and cultural preservation.
  • Governance, Civic Engagement & Policy Innovation: Encouraging citizen participation, transparency tools, public policy solutions, and service delivery improvements.
  • Technology for Social Good: Applying AI, data, mobile platforms, robotics, or blockchain to solve social, environmental, or economic problems.
  • Mental Health & Community Support: Addressing stigma, improving access to mental health resources, and strengthening psychosocial support systems.
  • Urban Innovation & Smart Cities: Developing solutions for urban living challenges such as waste management, energy use, mobility, and inclusive urban planning.

What makes this Challenge Unique?

• The EDHE Absa Innovation Challenge stands apart from the Entrepreneurship Intervarsity in both scope and ambition, offering a bold and inclusive platform for fostering innovation and entrepreneurship across South Africa’s 26 public universities. Unlike the Intervarsity, which is exclusively open to currently enrolled university students and focuses on showcasing operational, revenue-generating businesses across categories such as tech, social impact, and commercialised academic research, the Innovation Challenge broadens its reach to include alumni who graduated between 2023 to 2025.
• With its end-to-end development model and focus on problem-solving and societal relevance, the Innovation Challenge supports the long-term growth of South Africa’s innovation ecosystem. It is backed by a committed corporate partner invested in unlocking national potential through entrepreneurship and innovation, making it not just a competition, but a launchpad for meaningful and sustainable change.
• This competition is not about launching the next ordinary business. It is about identifying and nurturing ideas that break the mould, challenge the status quo, and demonstrate transformative thinking. They are looking for:
  • Innovation and originality;
  • Problem-solution fit;
  • Solution-market fit;
  • Transformative impact;
  • Radical creativity over replication;
  • Feasibility and development potential;
  • Sustainable solutions to emerging or overlooked problems;
  • Concepts that reimagine industries, communities, or systems;
  • Future-oriented thinking, not just market readiness;
  • Scalability/Replicability and impact;
  • Innovation beyond technology.

Prize Information

• 1st Prize: R500 000
• 2nd Prize: R250 000
• 3rd Prize: R150 000
• 4th Prize: R100 000
• 5th Prize: R50 000

Key Components of the Challenge

• A nationwide call for entries to source innovative concepts.
• A rigorous evaluation process to identify the top 20 high-potential innovations.
• A boot camp and mentorship programme to equip participants with essential skills.
• A final pitch event to showcase the top 20 innovations and reward the top 5 innovators.
• A dedicated incubation phase to provide ongoing support for developing and scaling winning solutions.

For more information, visit EDHE.