The Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) in collaboration with RiseUp announced the winners of the African App Launchpad Cup today on the last day of RiseUp Summit 2019, MENA’s leading Football and Alkottab Game Studio received a total of $60,000 in cash entrepreneurship event. Agora, Bouita, Arcanium Studios, 247Medic, Find Me help further build and grow their business. The selected startups were chosen prizes divided per each track – gaming and application development tracks – to Africa. from a group of 28 finalists who emerged from more than 9 countries from across
For the gaming track: Agora from Egypt won the first grant prize $15,000, Alkottab Game Studio walked away with $10,000 for the second prize and Arcanium Studios came third and won $5,000.
For the application development track: Bouita from Algeria won the first grant prize $15,000, while the second and the third prize were equally shared between Find Me Football from Egypt and 247Medic from Nigeria, winning $7,500 each.
Commenting on the competition, Dr. Hassan Othman, ITIDA VP, SECC Chairman and TIEC Chairperson says,
“We were impressed with the innovative ideas across diverse industries such as health, sports, and tourism. There were a lot of creative hosting its first of a kind competition in Africa and praise the government’s ideas whether from Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt. We would like to thank Egypt for role in supporting entrepreneurship across Africa,”
“We were impressed when we saw how the entrepreneurship scene across Africa is generating innovative ideas like what we saw at the pitch competition today. Collaborating with ITIDA on the African App Launchpad Cup is another step that we believe will widen the opportunities we are offering to the startups through the RiseUp summit, ”
Said Abdel Hameed Sharara, cofounder and CEO of RiseUp.
The selected startups got a chance to join an accelerator program and were granted exhibition spaces during RiseUp Summit, in addition to certified training grants for all teams through the African App launchpad.
Mohamed Rezkallah, co founder and Chairman of Agora, the gamified, educational application and the first winner in the game track says,
“We have a great team, and we’re proud of the sync between educators and application developers because together we believe this sync is what makes us successful,”
Sherif Badawy, Project Manager and Product Owner at Arcanium Studios and the third winner at the game track,
“We’re super excited to be here at RiseUp, especially because we’re realizing that the Egyptian community and the government are now and opportunity, and we would like to thank RiseUp & ITIDA for this focusing a lot on game development in Egypt. Which is giving us a big platform chance,”
Amr Kamel, Managing Director of 5D, and one of the competition’s judges said: “It has been a very interesting competition, we saw some strong applications and propositions, both from Africa and Egypt, it makes us very proud to see the young generation and what they are capable of. I think it was choices,” quite hard to choose the winners but it was successful in terms of people’s
ITIDA had collaborated with RiseUp to launch the pitch competition in Africa a few months ago. The competition invited startups working in either gaming or application that offers grants totaling $60,000 with mobile app development from 9 different African countries to participate in the contest
The competition is part of the Africa App Launchpad, a presidential initiative that targets building the capacity of 10 thousand learners and establishing 100 startups while positioning Egypt as a hub for startups in Africa by gathering some of the continent’s best startups in one place.
This year, over 190 startups applied to present at the pitch and only 30 were selected.
This year’s selected startups include:
From Egypt, Agora, Alkottab Game Studio (Almohandes Lab), All for Ads & Programing, Arcanium Studios, Avocato App, Cantina Eats, CreditoGo, eSchoola.net, Find Me Football, FitNot, Furniture Hub OVRTime, Peopleby, Raskulls Game Studio, and Zeal IO Ltd.
From Nigeria, 247Medic, DUFMA, MedPlan, IgniteStartypX, Medplan, Myclinic Healthcare solutions, and ILAN Technology & Services.
From Ghana, Eatnow App, Finopp, and Gas App. In addition to GooDmom from South Africa,, AZELA from Madagascar, Qalamar, and Bouita from Algeria, Colorfol from Cameroon and Wekebere from Uganda.
