The 20th cohort of the BongoHive Discover programme, designed for aspiring entrepreneurs and early-stage startups to help them formulate their business ideas, ended on Friday 20th September with 7 teams pitching their ideas.

QuickWash Zambia, a startup company looking to open laundromats across Lusaka, won best pitch at the just ended Discover programme. Founder, Matthew Dindi, aims to make washing quicker and cheaper with a solution that can work even during load-shedding periods.

During the 2 week programme, the selected participants received daily training sessions at BongoHive on building a business model, product and market validation, creating sound financial projections and prototyping. They also received training sessions from our partners EY Zambia and Musa Dudhia and Co. The programme concludes with a pitch event where all teams present their businesses to guests in attendance. The pitches were judged by Japhet Mesa, co-founder at Crypto Tamanga Community, Rachael Njobvu, Founder of Modern Refinements and Taaza Banda, Accountant at BongoHive.

Second best pitch was MedSearch Zambia (Mataa Mataa and Zanga Musakazi) who are looking to make locating and accessing health care easier using an app. Third best pitch went to Vanessa Greens (Vanessa Diangamo and Hope Madoda), a startup specialising in making health foods such as snacks and smoothies to deliver to customers.

Other participants were Carry Catalogue (John Mutabaluka), E-Care (David Chimzizi), Illumine Africa (Precious Muleya, Donald Simutowe and Rabecca Chanda) and Shonse Delivery (Lubona Mwanawasa).

Applications are now open for the next cohort of Discover (11-22 November 2019). Deadline for applications is 28 October 2019.