21-year-old Alaa Moatamed, Co-Founder of Presto, a leading delivery management service, takes home the $25,000 Grand Prize at the Anzisha Prize Awards. With a pool of talented finalists from more than 15 African countries, the 2020 Anzisha Prize – the premier award for Africa’s youngest entrepreneurs – goes to Alaa Moatamed, a  young female entrepreneur whose venture provides business owners with an affordable and convenient delivery service for customers. EdTech entrepreneur Matina Razafimahefa, 22, from Madagascar emerged as the first runner up ($15,000), while 22-year-old infrastructure entrepreneur, Mohamed Bah from Sierra Leone, was the second runner up ($12,500).

The 20 finalists were selected from an impressive initial pool of more than 1,000 young entrepreneurs, up from 600 in 2019. The Anzisha Prize is proud to have attracted applicants from more than 30 African countries, across multiple sectors.  Each of the 20 finalists, who made it through the rigorous selection process, will receive $2,500 and will have the opportunity to join a fellowship of 122 entrepreneurs who receive venture building support and mentorship. Since 2011, Anzisha Fellows have created over 2,000 jobs – 56 percent of which have been for young Africans under 25.

At an early age, Alaa had a passion for business. In 2016, she participated in EYouth where she co-founded and headed her first initiative “Fettrah”, a project aimed at teaching people with mental disabilities. After Fettrah, Alaa went on to co-found CFI “Camps for Intelligent,” an organisation targeting youth aged 12 to 17 that provided them with skills not offered in traditional schools like art and design, Android and web design, and languages. Through CFI, Alaa and her team reached more than 70 young people. Post 2017, Alaa worked as a community manager for a Cloud co-working space, one of the leading business hubs in Al Minya, Egypt. With the sum of her experiences, Alaa co-founded Presto.

Presto is an automated delivery system that connects vendors with customers and suppliers. The platform provides a crowd-sourced network of delivery agents for small businesses. Presto has been successful since it launched in 2019 and serves 300 stores and merchants in two cities.

“Across upper Egypt, I saw people suffering from the problem we are solving and I wanted to try my best to help them, especially small businesses owned by women. I want to expand my service across Africa to help women who are suffering from operational hassles,” says Alaa.