In October 2016, we began our search to find and support businesses that created financial value while impacting the lives of others as part of our Chivas The Venture initiative. The Venture is Chivas Regal’s global search to find and support the most promising aspiring social entrepreneurs who want to succeed whilst making a positive impact on the lives of others. With over $1 million in funding and resources, The Venture will enable social entrepreneurs from around the world realise their potential and gain exposure for their business.

With over 226 applications received, the entries were culled down to the three most promising start-ups by our partners at the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) and returning Judge, Audu Maikori, based on the ‘Sustainability, Scale and Social Impact’ of their respective businesses.

This year, we received entries from diverse industry sectors, with Healthcare, Sustainable clean energy and Environment (recycling), emerging as the lead industries.

As we prepare for The Finals this week, take a look at the Top 3 Finalists whose business ideas caught the attention of our judges and has the potential to turn these social entrepreneurs into the next millionaires while making an impact on the lives of others.

– MOBicure, founded in 2015, is a social enterprise startup, creating solutions that make use of mobile technology devices and tools such as phones, tablets, SMS, apps, Interactive Voice Recordings (IVRs) and videos to solve some of the most pressing health issues plaguing developing countries including: poor immunization coverage, high maternal and child mortality and poor health access.

OMOMI (meaning ‘my child’) is a mobile platform that enables mothers to easily monitor their children’s health, as well as provides access to specific and life-saving maternal and child health information plus medical expertise, all at the touch of a button either via android app and web (for smart phone users) or simple SMS (for rural women with basic phones).

OMOMI has already saved the lives of thousands of mothers and their children across Nigeria, with over 14,000 mothers benefiting from the platform. Health workers have also found this new technology useful, as the MOTHERS’ COMMUNITY section of the app affords them the opportunity to interact with mothers who are unable to make it to the hospitals.

A truly unique development, OMOMI remains the only mobile health platform for maternal and child health in Nigeria with the ability to connect with every mobile device (through web, app and SMS).

– EcoFuture was borne solely from the need for proper waste.With the use of a smart sensor waste bin, geomap and SMS for daily, weekly and monthly collection of recyclable waste from household residents, government and business establishments, waste is collected and channeled to a recovery facility where it goes through a sorting process through a compactor machine. The waste materials are packaged according to customer specifications and delivered through a third party logistics company.

Low income communities have been given the opportunity to capture value from recycling their waste through an incentive based system. EcoFuture has been able to reduce over 250,000kg of greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise have been released to the atmosphere.

EcoFuture currently has over 1000 households and business establishments registered on its platform for daily waste collection.

– Recycle Points is an initiative that aims to recover valuable materials disposed by consumers through a  model built around a community-based waste processing enterprise called CoSoHUB (Collection and Sorting Hub).

The RecyclePoints scheme deploys the use of Electric Cargo Tricycles, the first of its kind in Nigeria, manned by employed youths (WasteBusters), who embark on the door-to-door collection of recyclable waste from registered subscribers in their iRecycle Network.

Subscribers are rewarded based on their points for discarding plastics, pure water sachets, aluminum and steel cans, glass bottles, paper and cartons, obsolete electronics, expired tyres, condemned batteries etc.

With a unique business model that offers incentives to users, Recycle Points collects waste via its waste busters initiative, creating youth employment in the process. The processing is done via its community-based collection and sorting hub(CoSoHub), where unemployed women in the community sort and bag the waste before it’s sold to recycling plants.

Recycled materials are used by the Nation’s leading FMCG companies to produce post-consumer packaging materials such as plastic bottles, beverage cans, glass bottles and water sachets to mention a few.

The winner will represent Nigeria in the global Finals alongside 32 other social entrepreneurs across 6 continents at the final event in L.A next year.