The BRICS’s Women Startups contest is an initiative of the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance. The aim of the alliance is to promote women’s entrepreneurship amongst BRICS countries and to ensure that women’s businesses are included in global supply chains. The alliance will achieve increased participation by women through active cooperation in expanding networks and opportunities to women in the member countries. The alliance’s activities are focused along the following five key themes: healthcare, food and environmental safety, creative industries and tourism, innovative development, and inclusive economy. The BRICS Women’s Business Alliance works through national chapters and is aligned to the BRICS business council.
Objectives of the BRICS BWA Startup Contest
The Startup Contest is aimed at stimulating the participation of women in entrepreneurial activities by identifying, supporting, and promoting women’s startups. The contest is particularly looking at startups that are innovative and that have potential to scale globally to countries within and beyond the alliance countries.
The contest will consider submission in the following sectors:
- Information Technology
- Education
- Health and Medicine
- Ecology
- Food security and agriculture
- Innovation and infrastructure
- Artificial intelligence
Eligibility
To be eligible, applications must fulfil the following:
- Women owned or led businesses from BRICS countries;
- Founders must be over 18 years of age;
- Projects must be innovative and original;
- Project must be commercially viable and must have potential to scale up in the BRICS countries; and
- The entrepreneur must be developing and implementing an innovative, original project with commercialization prospects for scaling up in the BRICS countries.
Judging criteria of the Startup Contest
Projects that fulfil the following criteria will viewed favourably:
- Quality of the presentation of the project;
- Availability of a prototype, a functioning digital platform/website, application, etc.);
- Capitalization potential in international markets;
- Project implementation strategy in the international market;
- Rate of return of investment of the project;
- Competitive and/or technological edge;
- Social value and inclusivity;
- Innovativeness.
Closing Date
The closing date for submission is 31 July 2024 and winners will be announced around 1 September 2024. Use this link to get to the application.
Entrepreneurs will be required to complete the 1-page application form which require, amongst others, project write-up, business model, current revenues, if any, resources, key performance indicators and social value of the project.
Further Information
One of our objectives is to empower small businesses and startups by curating funding opportunities that we come across. Refer to this page and follow the funding link for other opportunities.
While formal company registration is not always a prerequisite for accessing funding, it is crucial for formalised entities to maintain compliance. Lack of proper governance will completely hinder any prospects of funding. For guides and articles on governance, visit to this page and follow the governance link from there.
