Agrosupply represents Uganda at entrepreneurship forum for emerging markets

Group of smiling young people
Participants at the 2017 Seedstars Africa Summit. Credit. Seedstars

Dar es Salaam – After hosting competitions in 16 countries in Africa in only five months, Seedstars World has identified the most promising startups in each country, highlighting local startup ecosystems. These African startups will be representing their countries in the finals in April, at the Seedstars Summit in Switzerland.

Uganda’s representative, AgroSupply, has developed a unique mobile layaway platform allowing farmers to save money for the seeds and fertilizer using their mobile phone. Only the Tanzanian finalist is yet to be found.

The largest startup competition for emerging markets is now hosting its entrepreneurship forum for emerging markets from December 11th to 13th in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, at Seedspace Dar es Salaam and Kisenga LAFP International Conference Center. Tickets can be purchased at the event website.

“Unless you share knowledge, learning does not happen. I hope to learn more from the startups because a lot of times you think you know, but then you meet people who have so much more knowledge to share”, Emanuel Feruzi, mentor for the Startup Bootcamp, said.

Marcello Schermer, Expansion Manager at Yoco, Eldrid Jordaan, Founder of Govchat, or Doreen Kessy, Chief Business Officer at Ubongo, are some of the prominent names joining the event as well.

“For the past five months we have made Africa our home and went on an interesting journey deep into 16 startup scenes in the region, not only scouting for the best tech entrepreneurs but working directly with them and other passionate ecosystem builders. We aimed at making a difference everywhere we went. We are very excited to bring the entire network together in Dar es Salaam, to dive into the different ways technology and entrepreneurship can rapidly impact and improve people’s lives by tackling local social challenges directly”, said Claudia Makadristo, the Regional Manager for Africa at Seedstars.

The Seedstars Africa Summit is designed to facilitate meaningful discussions about topics that range from the policies designed to support entrepreneurship in the country and the region to the success factors and improvement opportunities of the African tech scene.

The organization decided to open the debate to other countries and regions, aiming to foster wider knowledge exchange, by partnering up with Canton de Vaud, Luminate and Fondation Botnar to include startup delegations from Switzerland, Zimbabwe, and Tanga, respectively. The event is sponsored by I4ID, Seedspace Dar es Salaam, the Swiss Embassy in Tanzania and Zambia, Merck, and Google, among others.

“The summit will provide an opportunity to reflect and inspire with like-minded innovators and change makers, about scalable solutions for transforming services and making them more inclusive and human-centered”, Sachin Gupta, Team leader at I4ID declared.

Tickets can still be purchased at the event website.


ABOUT SEEDSTARS
“They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds.” – Mexican proverb

Seedstars is a Swiss-based group with the mission to impact people’s lives in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. Seedstars connects stakeholders, builds companies from scratch with public and private partners and invests in high-growth startups within these ecosystems.

Seedstars aims at fostering impact investing and impact entrepreneurship over the world. Through different activities, that range from startup scouting, events organization to company building and acceleration programs, Seedstars has built the world’s biggest community of changemakers in emerging markets.

Seedstars group includes the largest startup competition in emerging markets (Seedstars World Competition), the Entrepreneurship Forum for Emerging Markets (Seedstars Summit), physical entrepreneurs hubs (Seedspace), acceleration programs (Seedstars Growth), teaching & training programs (Seedstars Academy) and an investment entity with a startup lab and a fund (Seedstars Investments).  

Some of Seedstars main partners are Enel (Energy), School of Management Fribourg (HEG Fribourg) & TRECC – Transforming Education in Cocoa Communities (Education), BBVA (Finance), Tag Heuer (Fempreneurship, Time Saving and Innovation), Merck (Health) and Continental (Mobility).

ABOUT SEEDSTARS WORLD COMPETITION
Seedstars World is the world’s largest startup competition in emerging markets. It has been five years now that Seedstars Team takes off every year for a 9-month world tour and scouts for the best early-stage startups in 65+ countries, organizing 100+ events. One winner is selected to represent each country visited, and is invited to attend one of the 5 Regional Summits, reuniting all local winners of each region to network with regional investors, mentors and corporates.

Local winners are also awarded the chance to represent their countries at the Seedstars Summit, the competition final happening in Switzerland, where startups compete for up to $1Mn in investment. The Seedstars Summit is the flagship event of Seedstars, filled with breakout sessions, panel discussions, specialized workshops and the best minds from emerging markets.

Press Contact:
Ana Vasquez
PR & Media Representative
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