Eight start-ups have emerged winners in the just completed ITU Telecom Innovators Competition. The competition was able to excited more than 822 innovators who had made entries from 99 countries all over the world.
The competition was opened to entrepreneurs between ages 18 and 30 from around the world, and it sought innovative digital solutions with positive social impact to four challenges, focusing on developmental issues and technologies.
The winners will be heading to ITU Telecom World 2014, the leading networking, solutions showcasing and knowledge-sharing event for the global ICT community in Doha, Qatar, 7-11 December.
The 8 winning start-ups and concepts were selected on the basis of social impact and potential for business success:
Challenge 1 on Local Digital Content with Challenge Partner Ooredoo
- TeleMuseum – Lorna Okeng, Uganda: online virtual museum preserving and digitalizing African local content, oral traditions, and culture in cinema
- Incept – Safouan Ben Jha, Tunisia: interactive, multilingual augmented reality app for museums and historic sites.
Challenge 2 on Open Source Technologies for Disaster Management
- Social Media Coordination (SoMeC) – Hemant Purohit, India: web app to identify social media influencers and improve disaster response coordination
- NAJI – Your Mobile Is Your Saviour – Sahar Pakseresht, Iran: app and bracelet using body sensor networks to locate people missing in natural disasters
At ITU Telecom World 2014 in Doha, the Young Innovators Competition winners will take part in an accelerator programme to take their projects to the next level via one-on-one sessions with start-up mentors and business experts, hands-on workshop training and peer mentoring from the winners of the 2013 competition.
Based on their performance during the Young Innovators Pitching Session, each winner will be awarded up to $10,000 for start-ups and $5,000 for concepts.
