African startups will have the chance to launch and promote their innovations to investors during the annual conference.
By Tullah Stephen
Early stage startups in Sub-Saharan Africa, are now invited to apply for the 6th edition of Demo Africa, an initiative that aims to connect African startups’ to the global ecosystem.
Through Demo Africa, tech startups in the region will have a chance to launch their products while they meet and interact with venture capitalists, investors and tech acquisition specialists from across the world.
Entry categories include Health, Education, Agriculture, Commerce, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Entertainment, Energy and Logistics. Thirty companies will be selected to launch their products at the main event that will take place in September 6th and 7th in Johannesburg South Africa.
The 30 companies will also receive mentorship and will attend a 2-day bootcamp in preparation for their launch and software and services worth more than USD150,000 each for the next three years. The annual event will be preceded by mini demo events in 14 different countries in Africa. The mini demos or innovation tours will commence on the 7th of February in Nairobi and will traverse across the continent till the 19th of May where the tour will come to an end in Cameroon.
DEMO Africa team and partners will engage with tech startups’ to share the DEMO Africa vision as well as coach and mentor interested startups in addition to sharing tools that can help them build and grow their businesses.
“We will be covering all the four corners of the continent and we have increased the number of countries that we will visit this year,” said Eng. Martin Obuya, projects director at DEMO Africa.
Some of the new demo stops according to Eng Obuya, include Botswana, Cote D’voire, Senegal and Morocco. “There has been a lot of innovation and entrepreneurship activities in these new countries and we hope to catalyze the ecosystems there in line with our mission.”
On his part, Harry Hare, the executive director at DEMO Africa said the events aim is to engage with the startups in the various countries. “We urge the startups to take the advantage the partner network created by DEMO Africa and its partners through the LIONS@FRICA partnership to create linkages and networks that can help them grow.”
According to Harry, Africa’s tech space is showing a growing potential to solve the numerous challenges the continent is facing. He adds DEMO Africa is actively participating in pushing technology in Africa to greater heights. Since 2012, DEMO Africa alumni have generated over USD54 million in both venture and angel investment or from unique mix of positioning and exposure.
To apply to launch at DEMO Africa, visit www.demo-africa.com
