We love road trips (sorry, I love road trips), especially if you are traveling with some cool people and somewhere in the bush without speed limits and roundabouts and no pedestrians to care about. And please, forget the police!
StartupBus Africa wants us to do this.
Founded in the US in 2010 by
Elias Bizannes, StartupBus is introducing in Africa this November a 4 day hackathon on a bus that will see 30 people traverse 2500km as they conceive, build and launch a startup. Such trips have already taken place in US and Europe.
According to
StartupBus Africa, the trip ‘Will bring the African startup ecosystem together to work to harness the opportunities of tomorrow’s Africa by tackling the big challenges and opportunities of today’s Africa.”
The 30 highly experienced African and International entrepreneurs will be on a road trip to Harare, Zimbabwe to Cape Town, South Africa and will visit local startup hubs and work with mentors in mobile, health care and energy fields.
The 15 African and 15 International entrepreneurs ‘buspreneurs’ will then pitch their startups to a panel of highly esteemed investors and entrepreneurs this November. It will consist of 50% coders, 30% designers and 20% business and marketing guys all focused on Mobile, Healthcare and Energy. The ideas have to have an impact on the African continent and help transform African entrepreneurship forever.
“We want to use the enormous growth of the African tech industry to address some of the problems that the continent is facing. The mobile sector represents for 4,4% of the African GDP, that means $32 billion to the Sub-Saharan African economy. There are 500 million mobile connections alone in 2013, projected increase by an additional 50% till 2018 The mobile phone is basically the PC of emerging and developing countries,’ said the team.
After the four days drive from Harare (ZIM) to Cape Town (SA), through Johannesburg (SA) and Bloemfontein (SA). StartupBus will hold its Grand Finale November 22 in Cape Town to pick the StartupBus Africa 2013 winner – who will then represent South Africa at the Global Entrepreneurship Week “Get in The Ring” (GEW GiTR) competition.
Apply now at: africa@startupbus.com.
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