Awards place Pan-African start-ups front and centre
Regional winners from across the continent with world-changing UN Sustainable Development Goals-aligned solutions will come together for the first-ever Global Start-up Awards Africa taking place in Cape Town on 14 and 15 June.Hosted by the Global Innovation Initiative Group (GIIG), the event is a culmination of a 6-month long process of extensive and rigorous research, networking, and collaborations across the globe, with the aim of finding Africa’s most promising innovators.
With the help of 30 country partners, 50 ambassadors and 250 innovation hubs, the Global Startup Awards Africa found close to 8 000 start-ups and ecosystem actors from 54 African countries with solutions to address 12 of the 17 identified Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
With a cohort of 215 independent industry expert jury members, the nominated start-ups and ecosystem enablers went through three rounds of judging and two rounds of public voting, which then narrowed down the search to 500 country winners, 60 regional winners and finally 12 continental winners that were announced virtually earlier this year.
“We have been incredibly impressed with the calibre of start-ups and the phenomenal world-changing solutions they have created; we cannot wait to showcase them on the stage at this inaugural event,” says Jo Griffiths, co-founder of GIIG Africa. “We remain committed to Find, Fund and Grow Africa’s next generation of technologies which are solving some of the world’s greatest challenges.”
Getting to the core
Through this active engagement of start-ups, participants were surveyed, and invaluable data was collected, which allowed the organisation to get to the core of what specific needs and challenges are faced by African start-ups.
By hosting this event, the Global Start-up Awards Africa can facilitate honest and forthright conversations to address not only the day-to-day business challenges affecting industry disruptors and innovators but the immediate needs of climate change and the planet.
The winners will have the opportunity to present and workshop with industry experts, corporates, policymakers, global family offices, institutions and UHNWIs who are seeking to invest in SDG-aligned technologies from Africa.
The event promises to put the start-ups front and centre with the focus on connecting ecosystem players and enabling impact through meaningful panel discussions, highly curated matchmaking, and deal flow sessions, facilitating pan-African, global trade and investment opportunities for tech start-ups across the continent.
For more information, go to https://www.globalstartupawardsafrica.com/