South Africa’s mobility startups can apply for funding from uYilo program

South Africa’s uYilo– which means “to create” has announced that applications have opened for the 2021 uYilo Mobility Programme. South African mobility startups will be offered up to $73k in grant funding aimed at assisting projects to reach commercialization into the market.

The national uYilo eMobility Program was established in 2013 as an initiative of the Technology Innovation Agency (Act 26 of 2008) to enable, facilitate and mobilize electric vehicle mobility in South Africa. The first provided what it calls “kickstart” funding to qualifying mobility and assistive projects in 2014 when the fund was created as part of uYilo’s mandate to enable, facilitate and mobilize e-mobility in South Africa.

Hiten Parmar the director of uYilo speaking on the program that the switch to electric mobility will change the transport landscape in South Africa and also create local employment in the country.

“The switch to electric mobility is changing the transport landscape globally.

“A critical part of this transition for South Africa is to have localized content, promote local industry, and encourage local job creation. This is both to reduce the reliance on imported technology and products and to extract the maximum benefit from the minerals and other resources that are abundant in Africa” said Hiten.

All projects in the e-mobility ecosystem and value chain are welcome to apply, with each evaluated according to specific criteria and then managed throughout the development process to reach a set of milestones to achieve a successful outcome. Application for the program is on until June 30, interested startups can click here to apply.