Applications into the Nairobi Innovation Week 2018 are open till 31st January 2018 then a panel of judges will go through the applications to select the 100 pitches to select 15 of the most promising startups.
For a startup to be among the 100 pitches, it needs to set up its profile on on the portal startups.niw.co.ke. The startup profiles capture criteria items for evaluation by judges including links to profiles of individual team members within the portal.
The four main criteria for judging are;
- Ingenuity of the Idea or Product
- Scalability & Impact
- Traction (progress) & Next steps
- Team composition & commitment
The judging criteria will look at the entreprise holistically and will be working with over 25 startup enables within the ecosystem such as Metta, Sinapis and Nailab as judges.
“Team composition will be a very important parameter in assessing startups throughout NIW.Startups. It will demonstrate how well the founder can sell their vision and line up the right talent for their business to grow”, said John Kieti who is the NIW.Startups Coordinator in 2018.
Once selected among the 100 pitches, winning startups that qualify will be announced on the website and our social media handles on 18th Feb 2018. On 29th Feb 2018, the startups that will be among the 100 pitches at NIW2018 will be announced. From these pitches, Kenya’s 15 most promising startups will be feted.
