The race towards 2030 to realise the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is intensifying and getting more challenging. This has led some startups to tailor their solutions to realise the SDGs. Those startups will come together for the first time ever at the Global Startup Awards Africa event in Cape Town on the 14th and 15th of 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.
It was not that complicated to find startups that are working towards solving world problems as startups are geared towards developing solutions. With the help of 30 Country Partners, 50 Ambassadors, and 250 innovation hubs, the Global Startup Awards Africa found close to 8000 startups and ecosystem actors from 54 African countries with solutions to addressing 12 of the 17 identified SDGs.
With a cohort of 215 independent industry expert jury members, the nominated startups 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.
Jo Griffiths, co-Founder of GIIG Africa, comments, “We have been incredibly impressed with the calibre of startups and the phenomenal world changing solutions they have created; we cannot wait to showcase them on the stage at this inaugural event. We remain committed to Find, Fund and Grow Africa’s next generation of technologies which are solving some of the world’s greatest challenges”.
Through this active engagement of startups, participants were surveyed, and invaluable data was collected, which allowed the organisation to unequivocally get to the core of what specific needs and challenges are faced by African startups. By hosting this event the Global Startup 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, and institutions that are seeking to invest in SDG-aligned technologies from Africa.
The event promises to put the startups 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 startups across the continent.
The event is supported by stakeholders such as the South Africa National Convention Bureau, the City of Cape Town, and the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), whose collective vision is to position Cape Town as the tech capital of the future.
