The OSVP celebrated its fifteenth anniversary this October at the Mobile World Congress in Kigali, Rwanda. It’s a milestone that marks 15 years of bold ideas, human stories, and practical solutions designed for the continent’s future.
When Wissal Ben Moussa took over her family farm in Nzaha, in southern Morocco, she found land that was exhausted and dry. Where many saw a dead end, the young agronomist saw a test bed. She turned to agroforestry, combining trees with local crops to restore soil health and bring biodiversity back to life.
Within a few years, the positive results spoke for themselves, leading her to launch Sand to Green in 2022. The start-up uses solar desalination and digital soil analysis to turn degraded land into sustainable farming ecosystems. The project won the 2025 International Grand Prix.
Behind this year’s winners lies a much bigger story. Since Orange launched the OSVP in 2011, the prize has grown into the largest pan-African platform dedicated to social and environmental innovation.
Over fifteen years, the OSVP has become much more than an award. It has grown into the leading African platform for innovation, giving entrepreneurs the means to turn big challenges into opportunities.
The OSVP offers much more than a prize. It gives entrepreneurs access to long-term support through the Orange Digital Centers, which operate across 17 countries.
Start-ups receive personalized mentoring, technical and business training, and connections with investors and strategic partners.
For many founders, this support is a turning point. Former winners have gone on to raise capital, create local jobs, and even partner with Orange.
The 2025 international edition once again highlighted ambitious ideas that address concrete needs across the region. Each of the five winning start-ups tackles a major challenge in its local ecosystem:
- 1st International Grand Prix – Sand to Green (Morocco): an agritech platform that models profitable and regenerative agroforestry systems to support the transition to resilient farming.
- 2nd International Grand Prix – E-Blood Bank Makila (DR Congo): a digital platform connecting hospitals, blood banks, and donors with full traceability and fast delivery, including drone transport.
- 3rd International Grand Prix – N'Zassa Fund (Côte d'Ivoire): a gamified mobile micro-donation app that allows citizens to support local NGOs using mobile money.
- International Women’s Prize – ProVerdy (Tunisia): an AI platform that helps companies measure and reduce their carbon footprint with certified reporting and compensation tools.
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International People’s Choice Award – Maarifa (Botswana): an AI-powered learning platform that adapts educational content to each student to improve academic success.
With challenges ranging from access to healthcare to climate adaptation and educational equity, the OSVP shows how technology can unlock impact at scale and boost women’s participation in tech through a dedicated award.
The OSVP is also a platform that promotes fairness and collective engagement.
Created in 2020, the International Women’s Prize recognizes female founders or co-founders building impactful start-ups and helps reduce the gender gap in the tech sector.
Employees from Orange Middle East and Africa also play an active role in selecting the projects through the Orange Engage for Change platform, an innovative model of collective participation.
In 15 years, the OSVP has grown far beyond the idea of a competition. It has become a catalyst that connects start-ups, companies, institutions, universities, and public partners around a common goal: making digital technology a driver of sustainable development.
This momentum creates real pathways for young entrepreneurs, helping them turn ideas into projects and projects into high-impact solutions. Many winners have become role models and now inspire the next generation of innovators.
The fifteenth edition, highlighted by the recognition of Sand to Green, shows that when technology is grounded in local needs, it can solve major challenges and help shape a more sustainable future for the entire continent.
