From an 'Unusual Solution' to a Thriving Social Enterprise

Two years ago in Nairobi, Kenya, nine social entrepreneurs from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific pitched their “Unusual Solution” in the hope of winning USD 100,000 to implement their solution. 

Brice Sikem Nyuykonghi of Cameroon emerged as the winner and has since invested the prize money and his dedication, passion, and hard work into building up his solution. He and his team have turned it into a thriving social enterprise called Map&Rank in these two years.

We have had the great pleasure to support Sikem and his team for the last two years in their work, and the journey has been rich with learnings for us all. Through our discussions, Sikem has shared many interesting insights with us. The reason we decided to ask him for an interview and share his learnings and wisdom with a broader public on topics such as what achievements he is most proud of, what advice he can give to other African social entrepreneurs, how board games are an integral part of Map&Rank’s success for local community discussions on climate change and what’s up next on his agenda.

Learn more about Map&Rank’s solution in this story map (on ArcGIS StoryMaps).

While “graduating” from WeRobotics’ two-year support given to the winner of the “Unusual Solutions” competition in addition to the prize money, Map&Rank is continuing on a solid growth path and has just recently been selected as one of the 15 finalists of the Africa ClimAccelerator program for their 2022 cohort.

We wish Sikem and his team much success in their continued growth and impact on climate action in Cameroon and Africa. And we feel very honored to have been able to accompany Map&Rank during the first 2 years of their success.