m:lab East Africa, in partnership with SoftLayer, looks to offer catalyst program to startups in m:lab East Africa’s accelerator program dubbed “Mobile Impact Ventures Program”.
SoftLayer, an IBM Company, is a leading provider of global cloud infrastructure. Their full-featured API and automation tools let users control a powerful, on-demand platform that seamlessly spans physical and virtual devices
The Catalyst startup program provides highly scalable infrastructure, technology guidance and mentoring, business insight, and more to qualifying startups. This partnership with SoftLayer through its program the Catalyst startup program will see startups in the mobile impact ventures program take advantage of the generous IT credits of up to $1,000 worth of hosting per month on the SoftLayer platform for one full year.
The Mobile Impact Ventures Program is m:lab East Africa’s accelerator program for ventures with innovative solutions in agriculture, health & water and education. The program is backed by the Rockefeller and Tony Elumelu Foundations, through the Global Impact Investment Network’s (“GIIN”) Africa Impact Economy Innovations Fund (“IEIF”).
m:lab East Africa is already working with some high potential impact ventures in the program’s first cohort. A call for applications is open for new ventures to join the program in the second cohort. Startup teams of two or three mobile impact entrepreneurs are eligible. One of the team members must be a Tech Co-founder with an orientation to mobile software development. A second team member with working experience in education, agriculture, health or water will be an added advantage. An entrepreneurial instinct or experience running a business venture among the founders will also be an added advantage.
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Each of the admitted ventures will be required to dedicate time to complete program milestones associated with their business progress. A commitment fee of KSh7,000 will be required from the impact ventures that get admitted to the program. KSh5,000 of the commitment fee will be refundable upon the venture’s completion of program milestones.
The deadline for receiving applications is August 27, 2014. Selection is on an ongoing basis so early applications are encouraged. Interested teams can apply for the program HERE. More information about the program may be found on the m:lab website. For any questions, please feel free to send an email to – [email protected]
