Despite funding, mentorship , marketing, partnership and other challenging factors limiting African start-ups for global competitiveness, participants at the just concluded 2015 edition of DEMO Africa held in Lagos, Nigeria at the weekend urged young innovators to achieve scale in the local market with global vision.
The start-ups were selected from over 600 applicants with four earning direct nominations during DEMO Africa pre-pitch events.
Meanwhile, after two days of vigorous contest the start-ups presenting their products on the DEMO Africa stage, top five entrepreneurs including Simbapay, Zuvaa, InsureAfrika.com, CarPartsNigeria.com, and BambaPOS were selected to pitch in Silicon Valley.
The event is one of the flagship initiatives of LIONS@frica aimed to connect African startups to the global ecosystem.
It is a launchpad for emerging technology and trend where the most innovative companies from African countries get a platform to launch their products and announce to Africa and the world what they have developed.
With real startups being created in Africa to develop real-world solutions, worthy of investment and global attention, the U.S. Department of State, in collaboration with Microsoft, DEMO, USAID, and Startup Weekend, launched the liberalizing innovation opportunity nations (LIONS@FRICA) Partnership.
This was in recognition of Africa’s economic emergence enhancing and deepening the startup and innovation ecosystems of targeted fast- growing African economies.
For one thing, the event allows start-ups from all over Africa to meet investors, tech acquisition specialists, IT buyers and media from across the region and around the globe.
With sponsorship by Microsoft, Bank of Industry, World Bank Group, MainOne, among others, the thirty finalists before their final pitch at the 2015 DEMO Africa had gone through two rigorous screening processes with the final vetting and adjudication done by a pan-African panel of judges comprised of entrepreneurs, VCs and academia.
Speaking during the opening ceremony, the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency, Dr. Peter Jack urged the tech start-ups to see as their market and not to confine themselves to the local communities as local champions.
“The continent of Africa with 54 countries, 1.2 billion people and a normal Gross Domestic Product, GDP, of over $2.39 trillion should be your target to achieve the scale that makes you a dominant local player with global vision”
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