Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge, a global startup competition addressing the needs of deep tech entrepreneurs across several industries is open for applications for startup entrepreneurs from Africa.
Founded in 2013 by two PhD students, Xavier Duportet and Arnaud De La Tour, to propel emerging technologies, Hello Tomorrow Challenge gives scientists and deep tech entrepreneurs around the globe a platform for their research and projects, providing participants with equity-free funding, global visibility and connections with key players in the deep tech innovation network and other fellow entrepreneurs.
To date, previous early-stage participants have raised more than $300 million in funding. Applications are open until September 13th, 2019. The Grand Finals will be held in Paris on March 11th-13th, 2020 during the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit.
Applications to the Global Challenge are entirely free. To be eligible, ventures have to have a proof of concept, a prototype, a scientific validation of their claim, or are in the process of producing one.
Their team has to be made up of two persons or more. The project should not be part of a larger company and should be in early-stage (up to series A). Projects don’t have to be incorporated to apply to the competition.
These year, Hello Tomorrow has 14 tracks including Medical biotech, Digital Health & Medical devices, Drug discovery, Food & Agriculture, Industrial Biotech, Energy, Environment, Advanced computing & AI, Cybersecurity & Communication, Industry 4.0, Smart City, Mobility, Aeronautics, New Space.
From the applicants, around 500 will be selected by Hello Tomorrow and invited to the Hello Tomorrow Summit to interact with sector-specific and invite-only investors, top executives, accelerators and fellow founders.
They are also invited to the Investor & Business Day, for one-on-one meetings with 200+ top-tier VCs and 100+ international corporates, which will take place the day before the Summit.
80 finalists (around 6 finalists per track) will have the opportunity to pitch in front of a select audience of 400 people, competing for the €10k prize per track. The grand winner, selected among the track winners, will be awarded €100k (€10k + €90k).
The judging phase will take place in 3 distinctive steps. Applicants will be informed of the progress at each step.
The applications will be judged according technological innovation, impact on business and/or society, team and economic viability.
Last year, Nigeria’s RxAll won the Global Hello Tomorrow Challenge for its portable drug authenticator. RxAll received the €100,000 Global Challenge prize from BNP Paribas, Global Partner of Hello Tomorrow.
RxAll’s digital platform enables anyone to test the quality of their drugs using a portable nanoscanner and mobile app. Their proprietary machine learning algorithm reads the scan from the nanoscanner, identifies the drug and assesses its level of quality, records the test result against a blockchain ledger and returns the quality report to the mobile app in 20 seconds.
“It’s been a long journey, from nearly dying from a fake drug 15 years ago, to being with you here today,” said RxAll CEO Adebayo Alonge. “The solution that we have today means that nobody has to go through what I did.”
Fake medication is a $30 billion industry that poses significant risk to patients throughout the world, especially in developing nations. In 2017, fake drugs were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide, and centralized regulatory oversight is often unable to keep up with the speed at which counterfeiters produce new drugs. RxAll’s platform solves this problem by providing real-time drug authentication in the palm of your hand.
Last year, the Global Challenge saw 4,500 applications from 119 countries demonstrating that deeptech innovation can come from anywhere in the world, and that it can provide solutions to many of the major challenges facing the society today.
Co-founder and co-Managing Director of Hello Tomorrow said, “At Hello Tomorrow, we are working to ensure that these startups have the right conditions to create large scale impact.”
Africa – Finals will be held in South Africa and are open to projects/startups based or incorporated in any African country.
Turkey will host projects/startups based or incorporated in Turkey while Southeast Asia & Hong Kong – Finals will be held in Singapore. Open to projects/startups based or incorporated in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam and Hong Kong.
